Linda Zeb Hang
Foodscaping and the Sensorial Rhythm, 2021
Buried logs, Bamboo, Rice Koji, Compost, Clay Soil, Seeds
Installation Variable
Sculptor and Gardener, site-specific micro-climate installation for Exodus: School of Expression’s Seed Summer Residency, BIPOC Community Garden for Composting, Mulching, and Pruning; Chickahominy and Powantan terrain in Richmond, Virginia, June–July 2021
From 2004–2007 I studied Sculpture, Typographic Design, Book Arts, and Horticulture in San Francisco, California. The recession of 2008 predicted the need to liberate oneself, and in doing so, the microcosm and thematic framework of these disciplines led me to live off-the-grid for years, building structural closed loop systems, studying chemistry, scientific food processes, and survival skills to heal body through land labor, as well as advocating for climate, food justice, and migrant workers’ rights.
The slow reveal of this life’s union and self-determinant curricula provided a thinking station, engineering them as interfacing dimensions, and conjectures about shaped reality, the non-fungible nature of space and time, and the growth strictures of seed reception.
This site-specific Foodscaping/Micro-Climate installation for Exodus Seed Summer BIPOC Artist Residency 2021 is dedicated to Asian-American abolitionists, and environmental justice feminists Dr. Grace Lee Boggs, PhD (of Chinese descent, June 27, 1915–October 5, 2015), co-founder of Detroit Summer, a multi-racial, inter-generational collective with a youth program that draws volunteers from all over the country to repair homes, paint murals, organize music festivals and turn vacant lots into community gardens in Detroit, Michigan.
Dr. Connie Wun, PhD, (of Vietnamese descent), co-founder of AAPI Women Lead in Oakland, California, whose team uplifts the histories of anti-Asian violence, challenges the model minority myth by complicating what the Asian diaspora really looks like, highlighting issues of deportation, undocumented communities, and addressing economic disparities within the Asian diaspora, the invisibilization of our communities and our needs. Oakland's work around We Keep Us Safe, and call for solidarity work and resources to support our communities.
Dr. Connie Wun writes: “The myth that we have not been impacted by white supremacy also ignores our diverse communities’ experiences with Islamophobia and anti-South Asian violence, especially post-9/11. It dismisses the lived realities of disabled and LGBTQI Asians and Asian Americans, as well as our youth. And it often fails to account for the experiences of our Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander counterparts, whose stories are often conflated with that of Asians in the category of API, Asian Pacific Islanders. Yet, with all of these ongoing needs, less than one percent of philanthropic funding goes to our communities.” (2021)
Dr. Grace Lee Boggs wrote: “We never know how our small activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness. In this exquisitely connected world, it’s never a question of ‘critical mass.’ It’s always about critical connections.”
Linda Zeb Hang
Foodscaping and the Sensorial Rhythm, 2021
Buried logs, Bamboo, Rice Koji, Compost, Clay Soil, Seeds
Installation Variable
After the storm, electric olivine wilderness. Natural dye on burlap strings by Taylor Simone; land clay on cotton by Joy McMillian.
Fig. I
Bamboo Leaf Mulch, 2021
Drying out in the sun, the Bamboo leaf left a curious scent waver of decomposition… to be determined as it blanketed above the grass, seeming to slip, and soak right thru fingertipped grass grains, back to land.
Fig. II
Bamboo Harvesting, 2021
This Bamboo forest in the South was a welcoming embrace for the displaced Asian descendent. Within this Southern terrain laid flexible fiber. As it sung in the wind, I recalled a myth of the voice of a free reed: one of peripheral scales, sounds, syllables, and endangered scripts.
The silica that corrupted all logical sense, as intuition locked in place, a dissonance of memor-i. Woven to Exodus.
Fig. III
Recycled/Compostable Planter Seed Boxes (no plastic), 2021
Simplify what is available. Recology was a central theme in this micro-climate. How to use no plastic for seed starters? How to transplant without the shock of the roots? Creating and taking the time to world build thru craft, and ingenuity of materials.
Exodus: School of Expression’s Seed Summer Residency, BIPOC Community Garden for Composting, Mulching, and Pruning; Chickahominy and Powantan terrain in Richmond, Virginia, June–July 2021