The Illusion of Plans

The Illusion of Plans (Emerson Dorsch Gallery, Miami, 2010) examined the natural, economic, and political histories of southern Florida through the indigo plant. Once cultivated as a valuable source of blue dye, Indigofera tinctoria now grows like a weed throughout much of Florida. The exhibition resulted from expeditions to locate indigo in the landscape, encounters with local botanists and horticultural bureaucracies, and research into the plant’s history of plantation agriculture, exploited labor, and enslavement.

The exhibition brought together four related groups of work. (Not)Architecture: Partial Walls for Dorsch Gallery consisted of workbench-height rammed-earth partition walls built from Miracle-Gro™ Potting Mix and Portland cement. Following lines already inscribed in the concrete floor of the gallery, a former lamp factory, the walls divided the space without enclosing it. Three stretched indigo-dyed cheesecloth works (The Illusion of Plans 1–3) hung beyond the walls, while a living Indigofera tinctoria plant on a pedestal and a do-it-yourself indigo extraction and dye laboratory served as the setting for a lecture, workshop, and performance. At the conclusion of the exhibition, the rammed-earth walls were dismantled and reconstructed as a mound in the adjacent yard, into which the indigo plants were transplanted.