Hudson Bay berries:
Highbush cranberry (Viburnum trilobum) andHudson Bay currant (Ribes hudsonianum)
Whimbrel fuel for the long flight, the berries are isolated from the human-occupied area of the garden to suggest the notion that not all territory should be for human occupa-tion. Their red berries and fall color are a bright backdrop for the folly.
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Plan view
Section
Hudso
n bay b
erries
June-JulyAugust
September
October
April-M
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Turf pa
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mow li
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tall gra
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aspen
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folly
Subarctic flowering perennials:Great willowherb (Epilobium angustifolium)andAlpine sweetvetch (Hedysarum alpinum)
Willowherb, floral emblem of the Yukon, is a brilliant “weed” that at-tracts butterflies and bees from June through September. These plants are components in the complex Sub-Arctic eco-system.
Native grass/sedge for lawn, tall grassland and turf pavers
Hudson Bay:Hudson Bay sedge (Carex heleonastes)andChesapeake Bay:Tussock sedge (Carex stricta), Gama grass (Tripsacum dactyloides), Long hair sedge (Carex crinita var. crinita), Bluejoint reedgrass (Calamagrostis canadensis), Fox sedge (Carex vulpi-noidea), Switchgrass (Panicum virga-tum), Sallow sedge (Carex lurida)
Chesapeake grasslands are a mid-migration resource for the Whimbrel.
Climate-adapted tree:
Aspen (Populus tremuloides)
These trees are common from Alaska to Labrador and south into Maryland. Growing in large, clonal colonies, Aspen spring up in disturbed areas, revealing their resilience to direct and indirect human impacts. They are food plants for the larvae of butterfly, so they sync with the Willowherb planting.
Here, whips or liners are planted in a dense grove to enclose the folly, and their white trunks visually merge with its posts. Trembling leaves flicker as if in flight.
Folie (Folly) ā deuxFOLLY: a seemingly functional purpose-built structure ornamented in keeping with its intent to give pleasure. A structural whim…
The WHIMBREL (Numenius phaeopus), a curlew capable of making semi-annual trans-continental flights to nest in the Canadian subarctic zone and winter on the coast of South America. A bird of magnificent spatial scale, its migration paths slice elegantly across the map-sky to connect a web of cities across Canada, the United States and Brazil. The Whim-brel population has dramatically declined in the last twenty years due to forces of climate change and industrial-urban settlement practices.
FOLIE A DEUX: a madness shared by two
Folie (Folly) ā deux reveals the intersection of human spatial dominance and the vast migratory trails of the Whimbrel that links both species in a shared madness of destruction. The turf pavers present the carpet of human settlement in North and South America derived from Earth at Night images; its fragmented geography reads as a ruin within the lawn area. The folly structure delineates the flight paths of four birds tracked by The Center for Conservation Biology and Cana-dian Wildlife Service to provide transient shade but give no actual shelter. From the ground, the apparently literal forms are distorted and thus repositioned as abstractions. The shadows cast by the folly move across the garden uniting participants with the terrestrial spread of human settlement and the ephemeral act of migration. The garden engages visitors in a folie ā deux — a madness of human delight in a scenario of species loss.
Inuvik Cambridge Bay Repulse Bay
Baker LakeChesterfield Inlet
Ivogivik
Sudbury
Fort William
Gagnon
TorontoBuffalo
Quebec Jardin MetisNova Scotia
Halifax
Richmond
Whim
brel migration period
Savannah
Nassau
Port au Prince
Antigua
Port of SpainGeorgetown
MacapaBelem
Surinam
Sao Luis
Elevation view
see Elevation below
Subarc
tic flow
ering p
erenni
als
Photograph of the study model show-ing the complex shadows of the folly “flight lines.”
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Plan view
Section
Hudso
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June-JulyAugust
September
October
April-M
ay
Turf pa
vers in
lawn
mow li
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tall gra
sses
aspen
grove
folly
Folie (Folly) ā deux
Sheet steel Folly “roof” flight lines:
Thin sheet steel blades with variable depth are bent and bolted onto posts to configure the scope and complexity of the Whimbrel’s trans-continental migration. (The lowest flight line is horizontal and at bench height.) The white-painted flight lines float above the garden, shift-ing shape in the changing daylight.
Square tubular steel Folly posts:
Steel posts pin the aerial structure of the folly to the cities networked together by Whimbrel migration us-ing the map pavers as a geo-spatial reference. Each post is marked with the name of the city (see below).
Turf block pavers (Hastings)
Turf pavers are strategically broken to form the map “ruins” of the human-inhabited areas of North and South America.a single paver unit