The residents are coming!

PLAND is proud to announce its inaugural residents for 2010: Sophie Mellor and Topographia Collective.

Sophie Mellor is an artist, curator, activist, and all-around remarkable woman hailing from Bristol, England.  For the past 18 months, she has been living and working in a cave.  She has taught herself to make a bow and arrow, a catapult, a club, a green wood stool, an ice hole, and a temporary woodland shelter.  Not only has she demonstrated skills applicable to the rugged, off-the-grid lifestyle at PLAND, she has also started several artist organizations — Girl Gang and Plan 9 — managed grants, and maintains a killer website.  She caught our attention with statements such as this:

“I’m a gang leader and a gang follower, an urban hermit and a trainee horseback archer. I’m currently amassing a handmade weapons cache for alternative non-violent uses; researching futility; meeting with animals; embroidering money and living in a cave.

In my rucksack I carry a knife, a folding saw, string, a lighter, needle and thread, candle, pen and paper. I’ve got bruises on my knees, dirt under my finger nails, callouses on my hands and a wicked new haircut.

I’ve been a gardener; factory worker; full-time activist; nightclub hostess; face-painter; market stall holder; office worker; cotton picker and unsuccessful hunter.

Last week I taught myself to make string from willow bark; whittle a spoon; build a website and make wild garlic pesto. Last month I canoed down the River Avon; went hunting with my catapult; practiced arrow making and scared myself by climbing too high up a tree.”

Sophie will visit PLAND for an incubated period of 3 weeks in August.

Topographia Collective is “a collaborative of individuals that have formed around the idea of mapping, documentation, and extra-scientific research.”  Comprised of Albuquerque-based artists Catherine Page Harris, Jessamyn Lovell, Lee Montgomery, and Mary Tsiongas, Topographia Collective will produce its first project at PLAND throughout the 2010 season.  In their application, they state “Our interest is not in producing something ON the land, but instead with developing a project from the land to share beyond it’s boundaries.”  Through a series of visits between August and November, the group aims to use ”a combination of surveying techniques, technological experiments with video and photography (cameras mounted on balloons, navigating the land via remote control, etc.), methods of divination (such as dowsing), and simple photographic documentation… to document the 1.25 acre plot that PLAND occupies.”

Topographia Collective will visit PLAND intermittently throughout the residency season and will produce a limited edition book/DVD of their land-based explorations.

By hosting these two resident groups, we believe that a balance is struck between objective observation and intimate immersion, spontaneity and directive intention, collaboration and isolation.  We are grateful to all who applied for the 2010 residency and look forward to growing the program in years to come.

Beware thy coyotes

Check out this rad CultureMap article about The Idea Fund recipient projects (including PLAND, of course!) from Houston-based writer Nancy Wozny. Thank you Nancy!

Nina and Basket Bob

The heat is on

In preparation for the fun, challenging, and wild things heating up at PLAND, I (Nancy) am working as a WWOOFer during May and June at Calliope Collaborative, an organic, family-run, off-grid farm in Anton Chico, New Mexico. I didnt know too much about the farm until I arrived but soon learned that one-fourth of the family unit, Jenn Hart-Mann, is an artist and teaches in the Land Arts of the American West program at the University of New Mexico. She has been a great inspiration and supporter of PLAND, offering us her experience, ideas, and even a chicken tractor! Plus, she has entertained my totally ignorant questions about planting, building, and basically everything non-city-life-related, which might be her most difficult job of all.

Calliope Collaborative farm

The Anton Chico region is similar to that of PLAND, though Calliope has the added benefit of water from the acequia; still, harvesting and conservation is a constant concern. Since Ive been here, we have planted and harvested numerous vegetables including okra, pole beans, eggplant, chard, lettuce, cucumbers, peppers, and corn, plus various flowers. There have been multiple kitten, duck, and geese rescues, as well as turkey babies! Jenn and her husband Bill have taught me about building with straw bale, constructing hoop houses, animal husbandry, solar power, and farming; plus, they have helped ward off the tom turkeys when Im being cornered, or chased. One thing that has interested me most about farm life (and most to my surprise) is the chickens, and I am advocating to include them in the PLAND summer blueprint. Nina and erin agree!

(And as Im writing this post, Jenn and Bill are out in the North Field gathering hay. Sunday is my day off from farm work, so Im hanging out and watching the kids. Chloe, the 3 year old daughter, insists that her stuffed animal sit on my lap so he can see what Im typing.)

The farm is only about three hours away from PLAND and our increasingly awesome community of Tres Piedras, so I am able to visit on weekends. Last weekend erin, Nina, and myself hashed out some rough yet glorious drawings for our first structure, which includes mostly scavenged and donated materials, and a monetary budget of $1000. We also researched fiscal sponsors, applied to a residency in Australia and another in Berlin, created a summer calendar of visitors and events, washed dishes, built some shelves, cleaned out the sauna, rebuilt a bench, and ventured into town to dump recycling and do laundry. We also hosted our first visitors: San Francisco-based curators Nicole Lattuca and Laura Poppiti, accompanied by little canine Bare. The girls were brave and energetic, and we were so happy they could experience these very early stages of PLAND.

Most importantly we pored over the impressive inaugural PLAND resident applications! We were blown away (and humbled) that these rockin’ applicants wanted to share their experience and expertise with us and other collaborators, visitors, etc. In the next few days we will declare the first ever resident! Better keep your ears to the ground, cause its gonna rumble…

erin and Nina, taking advantage of precious internet time at Wired cafe.

This just in, from Nina!

Nina has officially moved to PLAND!  She sent the info and sentiments below, just before truly going off the grid:

“In the 1960′s Roberto Allelunas was traveling the United States in a covered wagon attached to a rusty pick up truck, working as an electrician, and wearing buckskin pants, moccasins, and buffalo robes. He also was an expert basket weaver. In his travels, he met with indigenous people, emulated their styles of weaving, and often ended up trading baskets for food and shelter. The most accommodating people he met were the people of the Taos Pueblo. Upon having his first child, he realized that although he had no resources, he needed to settle down. Among the sagebrush and distant mountains, 30 miles northwest of his friends at the Pueblo, Basket Bob declared an arid, tiny square of desert home. He bought the acre for $10. He dug a large hole in the ground, down to the hard, cool bedrock, and wove a gigantic basket of young aspens over head. As his family grew, so did their need for shelter. He bought another piece of land, and dug another pit house. As the 3 children came of age to attend school (something Bob holds dear – he escaped the slums of Pittsburg, and enlistment in the Viet Nam War only by attending 4 years of Franciscan Seminary) he wanted to provide a more substantial home. He pulled the old covered wagon to the far western edge of the Taos mesa. He once again dug down to bedrock. He piled stones, and salvaged lumber, and old tires in the shape of walls. He pressed the windshields of trucks into wet adobe for windows. Years of labor can be seen in the hand packed adobe walls, the hand-hewn wooden beams, and the stacked stone foundation that radiates out from the original pit house living room.

I just moved into Basket Bob’s home. This rambling structure is one of the closest neighbors to PLAND. There are now solar panels running to 2 car batteries. This gives me one light bulb per room. There is a hand pump that pulls drinking water from an under ground cistern. A wood-burning stove is central to each room. The ceilings are low, the floor is made of dirt, and to many, it looks like an archeological site. I think of it as The Homestead. One year ago, I was living in a deluxe Victorian house in San Francisco. Up until yesterday I was living with a washer and dryer, a refrigerator, and central heating. Why am I choosing to live in such a primitive fashion when there are many easier options available? I want to learn. I want to discern what is necessary in life. While I might feel like I need to use the Internet every day, I know I will be happier spending that time in the sunshine. While the stimulation of music and movies and Facebook is fantastic, I think I gain more by spending my time with Bob, learning to weave and make adobe, or just watching the clouds stampede from distant horizon to horizon. When I woke this morning, and smelled my espresso percolating on the stove as the blue shadows huddled, shrinking, in the gentle dips of the desert, that I felt more human than I had in a long time. My cell phone had no reception, my computer was in a box somewhere, and all I could do was watch the morning unfold. How easily I had forgotten that straight walls, electric sockets, hot running water are modern conveniences, and that for most of human history, and in most of the world today, people have forged their existence from local resources and with no excess.

More than ever, and not only because of the extreme isolation of The Homestead, I am excited to have visitors. There can be a moment of shock and revulsion by seeing a life lived so differently; beyond that moment, if one is curious and open-minded, there is much to be explored. In its simplicity, the elements of necessity are laid bare. Just by being at Bob’s house, you start to notice how the walls attach to the ground, how delicious water tastes, how the magenta glow of sunset gives something more than superficial warmth, how a good conversation can be deeply satisfying. Living in a vast open space makes you aware of the lay of the land, but also forces you to be aware of how you relate to the things you gather around you. The bed is no longer a piece of furniture, but the thing that facilitates sleep. The chair becomes a host of activities – reading, writing, gazing, thinking – not just a chair. The window does not just frame a view, but is moderator between you and the wind and the sun, between the tame indoors and the feral outdoors. I am learning that this is the essence of intentional living. Erin, Nancy, and I give so much thanks to Basket Bob – for recognizing our curiosity and intentionality, and offering us a home that will be both refuge and resource.”

Way to go Nina! We will join you soon…

Be the First!

Dear friends and comrades,

We are thrilled to announce our inaugural residency at PLAND and invite you to apply.  Please take some time to review the residency information download the application form here.  As you’ll note, PLAND is a rather unusual context and what we offer through this residency is an immersive opportunity for spirited, gritty, and very real daily existence.  We invite you to consider visiting our tiny parcel of land near Taos, New Mexico.  Not only will a residency offer you the direct experience of living off-the-grid, but it will also invite new ways of thinking, making, seeing and collaborating.

Please note that the application deadline is May 10th and due via email.

Pass it on!  In circulating information about this opportunity, we are also creating a social network of like-minded people.  While we can only choose one resident or collective for the 2010 season, we are excited to know who you are and how you’d like to participate in this endeavor.  If you like what we’re up to, let us know!  Join our email list, follow our blog, and one of our fans on Facebook.   Talk to us and talk to each other and then… let’s make something happen!

Looking forward,

Erin, Nina, and Nancy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 22, 2010
Contact: Erin Elder
pland.info@gmail.com

NEW INITIATIVE PROCLAIMS:

PRACTICE LIBERATING ART THROUGH NECESSARY DISLOCATION!
www.itspland.org

TAOS, NEW MEXICO – Announcing the formal launch of PLAND, an off-the-grid residency program that supports the development of experimental and research-based projects in the context of the Taos mesa.  PLAND was conceived of and founded in July 2009, when creative trio Erin Elder, Nina Elder, and Nancy Zastudil banded together to acquire a small parcel of land near the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the Rio Grande Gorge. The arid plot is currently void of amenities such as water and electricity, with terrain defined by sage brush, chamisa, and breath-taking vistas of open sky. The region is home to alternative communities including the Taos Pueblo, several Earthship developments, and a scattering of off-the-grid homesteaders.

The three founders describe PLAND as:

“A program that focuses on open-ended projects that facilitate collaboration, experimentation, and hyper-local engagement. We do not hold expectations about prescribed outcomes. We privilege process over product. We believe artists can do amazing things when supported and encouraged in new contexts. We believe that no context exists like that of the Taos mesa.

We find our inspiration in a legacy of pioneers, entrepenuers, homesteaders, artists, and other counterculturalists who – through both radical and mundane activities – reclaim and reframe a land-based notion of the American Dream.”

During Summer 2010, PLAND will host a motley crew of thinkers and doers in a series of work parties, idea-testing workshops, and inaugural project-based residencies in order to transform the land into a more inhabitable outpost while challenging artists to create, experiment, and produce their own work within this unique context. These activities are funded in part by The Idea Fund and supported by the hard work of students at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

A Library in the (re)Making!

Since arriving in Taos last summer, we’ve shared a collective fantasy about creating a mesa library.  A legendary abandoned blue schoolbus with “GOSPEL ON THE MOVE” scrawled across the top seems a fitting home for such an endeavor.  Although the schoolbus doesn’t run,  it could be a light-filled shelter for books and readers.

Books are essential to the way-of-life we aim to cultivate at PLAND.  Books are not only the foundation for off-the-grid research, but they are a keyhole into other times and different ways of thinking.  Reading is an important pastime that we hope to keep alive and well, even amidst the challenges of mesa life.

Today I encountered a sale on discarded library books.  For $12 I was able to collect more than 30 books! Most were published in the ’70s and many are illustrated; I found the majority of them in the “children’s section.”

We haven’t made the necessary arrangements to convert the schoolbus from abandonment to library, but whatever the case we’re committing to books, to learning, to reading, and to creating a place in which all these things will happen.

Cheers to recycled books and to the “Gospel on the Move!”

- erin

Here are a selection of titles scored from the discarded book sale:

Will Rogers, Cowboy Philosopher

The Cell (LIFE Science Library)

Poisonous Dwellers of the Desert

The Big Book of Cowboys

What Happens at a Gas Station

The True Book of Plant Experiments

Rocks and their Stories

All About Prehistoric Cave Men

Pollution: The Dangerous Atom

The Mountain

A Sleepless Day

The Santa Fe Trail

Kites: How to Make and Fly Them

Catch the Wind: A Book of Windmills and Windpower

Daniel Boone

Keeping the Harvest: Home STorage of Vegetables and Fruits

How to Build Patio Roofs

The Earth (LIFE Science Library)

Nature on the Rampage: Our Violent Earth

The Rock-Hound’s Book

Here I Am! An Anthology of Poems Written by Young People in Some of America’s MInority Groups

The Life and Legend of George McJunkin: Black Cowboy

The Houses That Indians Built

Bicycle Repair

1 Pinch of Sunshine, 1/2 Cup of Rain: Natural Food Recipes for Young People

The Potlach Family

The Cowboy Trade

Unidentified Flying Objects

Weeds and Wild Flowers

Woodstock Handmade Houses

YOU ARE HERE and ITS PLAND!

Welcome to PLAND, an off-the-grid residency program that supports the development of experimental and research-based projects in the context of the Taos mesa.