Alice-Marie Archer hand-knits fiber sculptures that are each embedded with seeds, creating patterns suited to the needs of each seed species—whether it grows best in a divot, pocket, or row. For this site-specific installation at the Benton, the artist has chosen seeds of locally occurring California plants with either edible or medicinal properties.

Archer connects new technology through age old techniques with her sculpture. As an aid to her practice, she uses Midjourney AI visualizations to imagine her work in new spaces and forms. In these images her sculptures morph into home-like structures or walls of cascading plants that fit into imagined urban landscape modelling how this work can be implemented in daily life.

Visitors will be able to see, smell, and feel the installation change daily as the seeds germinate, sprout, grow, and decay throughout the course of the exhibition. Archer’s sculptures will eventually be returned to the earth, completing the natural cycle of growth and death, and contributing once again to the local ecosystem.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Alice-Marie Archer is a UK based artist and researcher who worked in aquaponics for nearly 10 years before turning to her own artistic practice. Her work expands the limits of agritextiles by using hand-knit wool patterns to germinate and grow seed. Through her research she aims to re-entangle soilless cultivation with landscape. Her sculptures are not only aesthetic objects but functional agricultural systems. She sees her work as an “antidote” to the soilless concrete urban life. Archer is currently pursuing her PhD in “Knitting cultivation forms for the soilless farm” at Portsmouth University.

Caroline Eastburn, guest curator

courtesy of Benton Museum

courtesy of Benton Museum