Festival | Previous Editions
Pomme de parterre
Inspired by gradeschool science experiments, Pomme de parterre involves harnessing the energy produced by the lowly potato to create a visual and aural environment within an underground chamber located in a potato patch.
Visitors to the Festival site first encounter a parterre (a formal garden) planted with thirteen different species of heirloom potatoes, a layout that displays the variety of potatoes with their remarkably diverse flowers and plant structures. In the centre of the parterre, a publicly accessible underground storage chamber/root cellar houses a potato battery made of 1,000 potatoes, the equivalent of the number of these vegetables an average Canadian family consumes annually. The potatoes are connected in series, then in parallel in order to increase voltage and amperage; the electricity produced is converted directly to a sound wave, then broadcast inside the chamber. The resulting drone and ambient light is the translated sound of the potatoes.
This project has wideranging artistic, environmental, and technological implications, but it is also playful, visually intriguing, and instructive. Exploring ideas of alternative energy, sustainability, and environmental concerns, it renews the traditional garden parterre aesthetic in order to make visitors aware of the visual diversity of a very familiar plant, of its potential to produce energy, and, by extension, the potential of a whole host of organic materials.
Architect: Angela Iarocci, Claire Ironside, David Ross
Years of exhibition: 2007, 2008, 2009
