Landon Newton
Artworks
Image credit: Bob Krasner, Argenis Apolinario
TILT (what if these plants get out) is constructed with habitat-creating materials that provide space for insects and support biodiversity within and beyond the installation’s biome, which includes a selection of native and bioregional perennials, grasses, shrubs, and mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris). Throughout the exhibition, mugwort will be collected from the Park and transplanted into this area. By interplanting invasive species with key native species and inviting in what has been kept out, this installation conceptualizes what a supportive and regenerative ecosystem might look like if humans interacted more closely with non-human and “invasive” species. Mugwort is often found growing at the borders of ecosystems, on the edges of construction sites, or in sidewalk cracks, and has also been referred to as an “invader” and “opportunist” in New York State’s Invasive Species Task Force Report. Simultaneously, mugwort has many beneficial pollinator, herbal, and spiritual properties and has been harvested and cultivated by humans for millennia. Newton asks: “What if borders, edges, or margin species could be considered sites of support, nourishment, and care?” TILT reimagines what a garden can be, how it can function, and what stories it includes.
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
Landon Newton (she/her) is an artist, horticulturist, and independent researcher. Her interdisciplinary practice considers the reciprocal relationships between plants and people. Her work incorporates installation, site-specific works, and research to explore themes of permanence, historical distortion, care, and maintenance using living plants as materials and participants. She received a BA in history from Smith College and an MFA in photography from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Her work has been exhibited at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Frieze New York, local_30 with A.I.R. Gallery, Warsaw, Poland, WIENWOCHE, Vienna, Austria, CICA Museum, South Korea, EcoFutures: Deep Trash, London, and Open Engagement, Queens Museum, Queens, NY. Recent awards include an Emergency Artist Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and On Our Radar 2021 from Creative Capital. She has been an artist in residence at Denniston Hill, NY, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, VA, the Studios at MASS MoCA, MA, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, NY, and Marble House Project, Dorset, VT. Peer-reviewed publications include, you are here, The Journal of Creative Geography, University of Arizona (Fall, 2023) and Cultivate Journal, The Feminist Journal of the Center of Women’s Studies, University of York (2022). Her work has been discussed in Gagosian Quarterly, On Seeing, Substack, by Roxane Gay, Artnet, and Hyperallergic. Landon works and gardens in Brooklyn, NY.