Gallery

The following 13 images were selected by a jury for their visual and conceptual interpretation of the interrelatedness of land use, agriculture and food as embodied by the vacant elevator.

From top right to left as represented from south to north on the grain elevator:

“Cultivator” by Matthew Rezac, Grand Rapids, Minnesota – a pastel drawing of a rusty hand cultivator hanging in a dilapidated barn where his family farm once operated.

“Oglala” by Matthew Farley, Lawrence, Kansas – a montage of Nebraska farms arranging center pivot irrigation circles to spell ‘Oglala’ in Braille as reference to the aquifer below.

“Tomatoes” by Tinca Joyner, Omaha, Nebraska – crayon drawing by 10-year old neighbor of the elevator about her act of growing tomatoes in her backyard.

“Corn Cob” by Mary Day, Omaha, Nebraska – a corn cob composed of parallel rows to reiterate the relentless linearity of the landscape, the fields, and the subsequent kernels.

“Speak Up for Small Farms” by Castro Watson, New York, New York – a land-like quilted pattern of 535 hexagons, one for each congressperson, containing the words ‘speak up for small farms’. Units will be cut apart and mailed to each representative on Capitol Hill.

“Corn as Commodity” by Jeremy Reding, Seattle, Washington – a bar code corn cob when scanned with an iphone reveals a website listing all commodities of corn.

“Aerial Production” by Geoff DeOld and Emily Andersen, Brooklyn, New York – a line drawing of an aerial image at the edge of Omaha showing the rapid transition of rural to graded for development, to completed suburban form.

“Con(create) Synergies” by Brian Kelly, Omaha, Nebraska – an optical illusion of a potential re-development of the agricultural structure into contemporary living space.

“Drive Shed” by Cathy Solarana, Omaha, Nebraska – a pop art interpretation of a drive shed, an often-overlooked structure that once accompanied every concrete grain elevator as gathering space for farmers as they delivered grain.

“That Hourglass Figure” by Bob Trempe, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – an array of descending circles simply creating the illusion of a pinched silo.

“Bacon” by M. Brady Clark, Austin, Texas – a pop art icon of meat further expressed by the word ‘AMEN’ at the bottom of the image.

“Diminishing Returns” by Scott Keyes, Honolulu, Hawaii – a cross-section at an irrigation pivot in Nebraska superimposed on the silo as a measuring device of the depletion of the aquifer from 1970 to present.

“Battery of Energy” by Shaun Smakal, Vancouver, British Columbia – working with a AA battery and its exact proportion to a silo and similar energy storage purpose, a rainbow of small batteries representing all renewable energy sources in Nebraska are arranged from most to least sustainable to comprise a singular battery.