“Vessels”
PROJECT OVERVIEW
“Vessels” is comprised of 18 individual cast iron sculptures in eight groupings along the main path that runs through the Beacon Food Forest, located on the lidded Beacon Hill reservoir. The Beacon Food Forest is a seven-acre community garden mimicking a woodland ecosystem using edible plants on Beacon Hill in Seattle. Located on Seattle Public Utilities land, food in the edible forest section of the project is available freely to those visiting the park. The goal of the Beacon Food Forest’s stakeholders is to design, plant and grow an edible urban forest garden that inspires the community to gather together, grow food and rehabilitate the local ecosystem.
Nicole Kistler created a three-part program for this project. She began with a series of audio interviews and collected volunteers’ food stories and traditions which she edited into an 8-minute audio piece. She used snippets of those stories and quotes and embedded them into a series of 18, cast-iron sculptures.
Nicole was inspired by contemplating vessels in their many iterations: “The reservoir as a vessel holding water, vessels holding food. Blueberries, tomatoes and pomegranates are fruits that hold seeds. Seeds hold DNA. Mushrooms are containers that hold spores. We are vessels that hold stories. Like cookware, they will rust and weather with time and eventually decay.”
Nicole Kistler was Artist-in-Residence for Urban Agriculture, working with Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle Parks and Recreation to develop an art plan for urban farming.