Artist Survival Station

Living sculpture, durational performance, YouTube channel. 2020.
5’ x 3’ x 6’.
Shelving unit, home-made water distiller (copper, metal pot, hot plate, glass jars), plastic containers, hydroponic propagation trays, plastic tubing, metal grill; nutrient mix, Ph meter, Ph Up, Ph Down, scissors, 1 gallon hand-held sprayer, retractable metal arm, air pump, water pumps, fluorescent grow lights, LED grow light, fans, cable, micro-controller, timer, hemp, microgreens (corn, broccoli, wheatgrass, boy choy, chia, purple kohlrabi, beet, red chard, fennel, arugula, daikon radish, speckled peas), 8 episode YouTube series.

Artist Survival Station is a living sculpture, a 60-day performance, an “anti-business”, and a series of YouTube videos created in response to the financial, social, and emotional context of the COVID19 pandemic in 2020.

Throughout a 60-day period, a shelving unit is transformed in to a “survival station”: a performative, living, food-producing, automated, eco-systemic sculpture. Cycles of building, seeding, and harvesting are followed by personal bicycle deliveries of free microgreens to members of the artistic communities of Montreal. The entire process is documented and preserved for posterity through a dedicated YouTube channel, allowing a space for informal reflection while paying tribute to the genre of DIY microgreen tutorials.

Both functional and aesthetic, Artist Survival Station attempts to utilize capitalist logic with regards to efficiency, growth, and sustainable production, while neutering of any notion of profit or power. As a durational performance, it is a personal exercise in re-commitment to sustainability in an era of late capitalism, to knowledge gathering and sharing in the atmosphere of online saturation, and to care and exchange with people in a moment where physical contact is not possible.

On YouTube: Artist Survival Station - A Microgreens Journey

Artist Survival Station was developed as part of Centre PHI's Parallel Lines Residency .

Photos by Souligna Koumphonphakdy