April 28, 2012, Saturday - FLO(we){u}R Opens at The Soap Factory

Time:  7:00pm - 11:00pm

Location:  The Soap Factory, 514 2nd St. SE

Featured Artists: Joe Madrigal and Amber Ginsburg

FLO(we){u}R highlights a little known detail of American history. Beginning in 1914 terra cotta factories, which produced the decorative facades on buildings in downtowns across the United States, were commissioned to make ceramic test bombs for the military. Historically, the ceramic bombs were filled with baking flour and dropped from airplanes. The white marks made by the broken shells allowed early pilots to calibrate their targeting. The Soap Factory’s location in Minneapolis’ historic milling district lends rich context to the humble materials filling each bomb.

The Soap Factory’s gallery space will house a full scale bomb manufacturing facility and all aspects of production will be on display, from clay mixing through molding to drying. Over the course of the project, labor will accumulate in the form of dummy test bombs. Two variations of the terra cotta dummy bomb will be produced based on original WWI blueprints. One model is fired for use as a seed shaker. The second model is un-fired will be used for test launches and a one time seed dispersal at the end of the exhibition. These seeding will leave new white blooming mark on the landscape.

During FLO(we){u}R, the audience will not only be able to see production in process; they will be able to interact with the dummy test bombs in multiple ways. Deviating from the military’s intentions towards accuracy and destruction, the interactive and performative elements will address dispersion and formation. Ginsburg and Madrigal use history and metaphor to insert a poetic undoing of the bombs’ military past. Gallery visitors are encouraged to fill bombs with a custom dispersal mix of flour and white blooming seed mixes. This mix will be scattered throughout Minneapolis by on artist-led seed walks throughout the Minneapolis Park system or by bicycle on seed rides. In this way, the artists reverse the military precision of aerial targeting and allow for a more open-ended random dispersal.