The Hydroponic Garden

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Project: Itinerant Immersive’s Abandoned Spaceship Interactive Installation, “Cicada”
Location: Enid, OK
Year: 2024
Organized by: Ben Ezzell
Materials: Paper mache, tape, hot glue, steel mesh, spackle, joint compound, plaster bandages, wood, Styrofoam, latex paint, acrylic sealer, floral wire, floral foam, clay pellets, artificial moss, cardstock

The hydroponic garden is a love letter to growing and loving the food you eat. A personal look into my own childhood, where my parents grew their own veggies in the backyard, and would always ask us to cut up fruits after a meal for dessert. I wanted to invite the viewer to imagine how nature can continue to thrive, even on an abandoned ship. I see this work as a reminder of how living things will morph and change to survive, and how beauty can be found in things that are forgotten. Visitors can interact with the art by lifting the mushroom caps. Each one has a different fruit or vegetable growing inside!

Initial rendering.