MOUNT VERNON — Two California artists use short narratives, animation, video, audio and large-scale drawings to examine the history of corn in an exhibit opening Saturday, Jan. 8, at Cornell College with a reception for the artists from 2-4 p.m.
“FUTURE GEN” explores the human-plant interface – specifically related to corn – throughout history in a digital multimedia installation by Cornell alumna Kristine Diekman and Tony Allard. The exhibit runs through Feb. 13 in the Peter Paul Luce Gallery of McWethy Hall. Regular gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free. An artists’ talk is Thursday, Jan. 6, at 7 p.m. in Room 222 of McWethy Hall.
Diekman is a 1979 Cornell graduate and video artist who chairs the visual and performing arts department at California State University in San Marcos, where she is associate professor of video and new media. Allard teaches video art and related subjects at CSUSM and has led performance workshops across the country.
Collaboration and regional participation are crucial to their creative process. They tapped Cornell students to record their audio environments, and then mixed the recordings into a surround sound audio landscape for the exhibit. Mount Vernon farmers Laura Krouse, a biology lab instructor at Cornell, and David Hoke were interviewed about breeding, planting, harvesting and marketing local crops. Also interviewed was a corn breeder and former vice president at Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Don Duvick of Johnston.
“The cultural, political and economic dominance of agriculture in Iowa has been a central part of our research into the effects of corporate farming, genetically engineered crops and seeds, the historical origins of corn and the myths that have developed around this seemingly ordinary yet highly evolved plant,” Diekman and Allard say. “ ‘FUTURE GEN’ is hybrid folklore, incorporating elements of poetic retrospection on the history of corn and artistic musings on its future.”
