GO Doñana, Interactive Video Game Installation for 2008 Seville Biennial
DURATION: Weekends from Saturday, September 14th to Sunday, October 27th 2019
Time: 11 am – 5 pm
LOCATION: Building 10a, Nolan Park, Governors island.
GO Doñana is an interactive installation that illuminates the different land use perspectives regarding the Doñana National and Natural parks, important UNESCO wetland and dune sites, less than an hour south of Sevilla. Biodiversity has been maintained there for centuries since it was formerly the King’s hunting preserve, but it has been threatened by a mining disaster, endangered species, and water shortages. Specifically made for the 2008 International Bienial of Sevilla with the help of local stakeholders, GO Doñana’s ultimate goal is to introduce an art audience and members of the public to the complex issues in these unique wetland ecosystems.
The installation GO Doñana is based on the ancient Asian game of Go, using video projections and informative vignettes to encourage cooperation while guiding players through a wetland preservation. As the audience interacts with the projected Go board, each move activates the video/sound viewpoints of scientists, farmers, environmentalists, landowners, and park guides. GO Doñana is designed to introduce the art audience and members of the public to the complex problems in this rare ecosystem and other similar sites in coastal areas around the world.
Original Programming done in collaboration with Harvestworks/Zachary Seldess
Bio
Lillian Ball is an ecological artist and pro-activist working on wetland issues with a multidisciplinary background in anthropology, ethnographic film, and sculpture.She has exhibited and lectured internationally: Kathmandu’s Taragaon Museum; Seville Bienniale; Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid. Awards include: New York State Foundation for the Arts Fellowships; Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship; and a NEA Grant.Ongoing WATERWASH® public project series combines storm water remediation, wetland habitat restoration, and land preservation via educational outreach. Completed projects were accomplished with public funding through non/profit groups along the Bronx River and Mattituck Inlet.
Recent work in Lumbini, Nepal approaches a crane sanctuary endangered by development at the World Heritage site of Buddha’s birthplace with these same locally based concepts. Ball’s documentary, “Sanctuary”, depicts an inspiring effort led by Venerable Metteyya to preserve native flora and fauna in Lumbini, protecting the Sarus cranes that have been there since Buddha’s time. Creative work with stakeholders on conservation initiatives benefits wildlife, the affected community and visitors alike.
PRESS QUOTES
Rabi Thapa, “Growing Pains: What Should Art Do For Us?”, Engaged Arts in Nepal Catalog, curated by Lillian Ball for Taragaon Museum in Kathmandu, 2018
“Artists such as Lillian Ball (…) make it clear that they believe indigenous cultural practices are crucial to resolving the destructive relationship of the extractive and corrupt state with its most vulnerable citizens, human or otherwise.”
Rabi Thapa, “Growing Pains: What Should Art Do For Us?”, Engaged Arts in Nepal Catalog
Mrill Ingram, “Sculpting Solutions: Art–Science Collaborations in Sustainability”, Environment Magazine, Volume 54, 2012
“Ball’s art aims to be practical, offering a basic ecological model of relationships that can be useable in many towns and cities, but also one responsive to particular places and events.”
Mrill Ingram, “Washing urban water: diplomacy in environmental art in the Bronx, New York City”
“Models provided by artists like Ball (…) show how a distributed, site-sensitive approach to reclaiming urban stormwater or cleaning urban soil carries tremendous generative potential: supporting gardens; creating shade and color; offering opportunities to interact with other species and other people; building community; teaching the power of soil and plants to clean and maintain an urban environment; and granting a moment of pleasure. These are complex and ambitious goals, but the packaging is practical, offering a basic ecological model of relationships that can be useable by others in different places.”
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:
lillianball.com
waterewash.org
PAST INTERVIEWS AND PRESS COVERAGE
Abrahams, Matthew, “Buddha Once Saved a Crane. Now Its Descendants Are in Danger”,Tricycle Magazine, Oct. 26, 2018
https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/lumbini-crane/
Heartney, Eleanor, “Art for the Anthropocene Era”,ART IN AMERICA, Feb. 06, 2014
Art in America:
“Inspired by a conversation with a Long Island town planner and ecologist, Ball has already created (in 2007-09) the prototype for WATERWASH in Mattituck, N.Y., on Long Island’s North Fork, when she approached Paul Chapman, vice chairman and president of ABC Carpet & Home, in 2009. The ABC warehouse building butts up against the Bronx River waterfront in New York City’s heavily industrialized South Bronx. Before Ball’s involvement, it was just one more unsightly urban development with a parking lot from which oil and sediment-laden rainwater ran into the river. With financial assistance from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Bronx River Watershed Initiative, Ball enacted a system that would remove these impurities from the runoff while engaging members of the local community and the larger public. She notes with satisfaction that the money for this initiative comes from fines levied on industrial polluters.”
Eleanor Heartney, “Art for the Anthropocene Era”, ART IN AMERICA, Feb. 06, 2014
Excerpts from Jean Marie Offenbacher’s documentary Bronx River WATERWASH:
https://vimeo.com/115556348
Video interview for Mangrove Media:
https://vimeo.com/50830015
Go-Doñana information published in Spanish for Seville Biennial:
http://www.lillianball.com/docs/YOUniverse_Seville_Biennial_artist_info.pdf