The Wisconsin Project: silos

Showing posts with label silos. Show all posts

27.8.14

Short Harvestore, Kaukauna, WI

Short Harvestore, Kavanaugh Road at Fainway Drive, Kaukauna, Wisconsin (3.3.2014)
© J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

The technology of silos and animal feed storage evolved over time. New materials such as concrete, then enameled steel, made silos increasingly air tight helping silage last longer and making it taste better to farm animals. This layered history is evident in the barnyard with new ideas co-existing with old ones.

16.4.14

Killian's, Kaukauana, WI

Killian's, Kaukauna, Wisconsin (May 2013)
© J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

Barns and silos of varying vintages dot the Wisconsin landscape coexisting as evidence of evolving agricultural technologies that enabled dairy farmers to increase production. From quaint old red wood barns with windmills to early 20th century concrete silos to late 20th century Harvestores, the structures remain as memorials to a desire to embrace progress and expand on traditional food production practices. Agricultural silos have a distinct history going back centuries and enabled farmers to preserve animal feed or silage through fermentation.

10.3.14

Farm with Silos, near Columbus, WI

Farm with Five Vertical Silos, Highway 73, near Columbus, Wisconsin (12.14.2013)
© J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

Some Wisconsin cows go outside and most eat silage--fermented fodder--during the winter months. Silage used to be stored in vertical silos, but many farms have converted to "ag bags" or concrete bunkers leaving the Wisconsin landscape profoundly changed.

27.2.14

Corn Stubble in Snowy Field, Columbus, WI


Corn Stubble in Snowy Field, Highway 151 & 73, near Columbus, Wisconsin (12.14.2013) © J. Shimon & J. Lindemann

The space of the expansive sky and fallow land covered in snow that will burst forth with a hybrid corn crop come spring are distinctly Midwestern. Signs of agricultural industriousness abound in the precise GPS-guided no-till rows, the expansive cleared land with diminutive touches of forest saved by wetlands or property lines, and the giant silos punctuating the horizon though looking small and faint despite their massive concrete presence. Reading the landscape.

THE WISCONSIN PROJECT

Our research-driven Wisconsin Project contemplates the rooted-ness and state-of-mind resulting from inhabiting a single place, our native Wisconsin, for a long time. Through critiquing postcard views both made and found, we learn a great deal about past and present Wisconsin. We began making postcard views of the places immediately around our studio and on our drives around Wisconsin in about 2008. We use the vintage postcard film format and print the cards in palladium and cyanotype. By communicating details of a specific place, seeming to register only marginally on the national radar, the project seeks to bring audiences into a Wisconsin mental space. Some in the art world would argue that the Midwest, particularly Wisconsin, makes for banal “fly over” subject matter. Our project challenges that by finding meaning in the ordinary and inviting audiences to examine, dialog, and reflect on the particular emotional quality of the idiosyncrasies of place and the perceptions of those both inside and outside of it. Sometimes distant memories are involved and a longing for a time now gone. Wisconsin’s glacier inflected landscape and proximity to the Great Lakes creates an exotic arena for living that informs our project. The life cycle plays out and rural and urban ruins serve as monuments to existences as people, places, and ideas surface then vanish. Ultimately, we aim to grapple with complex perceptions of Wisconsin ranging from nostalgic, romantic, and idealized--as depicted on myriad real photo postcard and standard tourist postcards--to mysterious, dark, and Gothic as conveyed in works of art and literature such as Michael Lesy's "Wisconsin Death Trip" book and Werner Herzog's "Stroszek" film. The project culminated in a residency with workshops and community collaborations and the installation "We Go From Where We Know" at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center 10.13.2013-3.7.2014 and later the Harvestore Bandshell for Fermentation Fest in 10.2014. The blog continues the exploration of postcards.