Mylar squares planted in the Ag Quad cast light on Kennedy Hall. The installation, mounted by students in the landscape architecture and interior design programs, was part of the project "Beyond Fence & Focus, Beyond Sacred and Profane."
Robert Barker/University Photography
The discarded books that formed a path from the center of the Ag Quad to Mann Library last week didn't come about as a result of a hole in someone's book bag. The book path was the work of a group of landscape architecture and interior design students participating in a recent project called "Beyond Fence & Focus, Beyond Sacred and Profane."
The project, part of a course taught by Jan Jennings, associate professor of design and environmental analysis, and Paula Horrigan, assistant professor of landscape architecture, required students to construct a multi-part tableau that "contains place, periphery, space and a center that derives itself from a response to its location."
"Inside the library," said sophomore Courtney Armbruster, pointing to Mann on the east end of the Ag Quad, "books are protected from the elements, they are sacred, they are in a secure place. We're taking them out of their sacred place, thereby exposing them to the elements."
But while the elements may muddy and dampen the books, the knowledge that comes from these books remains. "The book is not the knowledge," Armbruster said. "Knowledge doesn't disappear when the book does." An economics text book, opened to pages that were highlighted with a blue marker, showed evidence of a transfer of knowledge.
Some of the books were buried like tombstones in an attempt to suggest the disappearance, or death, of the books. "Books are becoming scarce as everything becomes part of a technology," said Michelle Miller, a master's degree candidate in landscape architecture. Here, again, the group's placement of books in front of Mann library -- where computer terminals have replaced card catalogues and learning materials can be accessed electronically -- underscored the students' visual metaphor.
Other students who helped construct the book project were Laura Koziak '99, Steve Chin Dea '99 and Andrew Fink '98.
"The project enables students to understand the meaning of place and how the qualities of that place can be used to create an experience," Horrigan said.
This year's project also required students to marry images from Western and Eastern cultures.
A group of students, led by second-year landscape architecture student Jonathan Farber, combined a Taiwanese wedding tradition with Shaker influences in their project, which involved attaching wooden chairs by braided ropes to each of three trees on the south side of the Ag Quad. In reaching for a chair, as passers-by were tempted to do, their vision was directed skyward to focus on the convergence of branches from three trees, the group's chosen sacred place.
As part of the design process, students were encouraged to develop a ritual by which the project would be assembled and disassembled. Farber's group members participated in a Taiwanese stick dance as part of their set-up ritual. Horrigan said the development of a ritual enlarges the meaning and experience of the work.
In all, five student groups created exhibitions on the Ag Quad. The projects were assembled Oct. 9 and taken down Oct. 16 and were on view as part of the Cornell Fall Arts Festival.