Earth Matters home | Material Earth | Power of the Earth | Imagining the Underground | Strategies of the Surface | Art as Environmental Action |
Earth Works | Earth Matters blog | Earth Matters Family Guide (pdf) | Earth Matters Program Guide (pdf) | Artist Quotes | Earth Matters Performance Art | Artist Biographies | Twitter interviews | Earth Matters Lesson Plans (.pdf)



A collaboration between the National Museum of African Art and Smithsonian Gardens

In a first-ever installation of land art on the National Mall, three artists have been invited to create site-specific earthworks in the Enid A. Haupt Garden. Strijdom van der Merwe of South Africa, El Anatsui of Ghana and Nigeria, and Ghada Amer of Egypt have each turned to the land as a canvas to explore such diverse and interrelated issues as memory, history, and land use; spirituality, materiality, and environmental sustainability; and gender and the interconnections between hunger and political corruption. These works also challenge the absence of African artists from the discourse on land arts and reinforce awareness of how the earth works as a medium and as a message.



Watch artists El Anatsui, Strijdom van der Merwe and Ghada Amer creating their earth works for the "Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa" exhibition. Earth Works, is the first installation of land art ever to be assembled outside in the Smithsonian Gardens and on the National Mall. A separate sculpture by Ledelle Moe is on display outside of the National Museum of African Art.



Strijdom van der Merwe
b. 1961, South Africa
Land Reform
2013
Site-specific installation



El Anatsui
b. 1944, Ghana
Ala
2013
Site-specific installation



Ghada Amer
b. 1963, Egypt
Hunger
2013
Site-specific installation


Earth Matters home | Material Earth | Power of the Earth | Imagining the Underground | Strategies of the Surface | Art as Environmental Action |
Earth Works | Earth Matters blog | Earth Matters Family Guide (pdf) | Earth Matters Program Guide (pdf) | Artist Quotes | Earth Matters Performance Art | Artist Biographies | Twitter interviews | Earth Matters Lesson Plans (.pdf)


NMAfA home