"Turning every corner into a spot for civility, beauty and compassion"

This past week has been rather rough and grand excitement for research was on empty till I came accross a lovely story on NPR about Karim Wasfi, conductor of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra. Please check out the link but in short Karim, dressed in black, appears at explosion sites in Baghdad shortly after the violence occurs and sits down to play his cello. Karim explains, "This was an action respecting the souls and the spirits of the fallen ones due to terror around the world — and, of course, Baghdad, because we're living the reality over here. The other side chose to turn every element, every aspect of life in Iraq into a battle and into a war zone. I chose to turn every corner of Iraq into a spot for civility, beauty and compassion."

Now I know the Edge District is far from a war zone, but the above quote gave me food for thought. The edge district has a lot of soul (both musically and spiritually) and it is a very bare non-descript neighborhood. Everytime I walk through the area, I am inititially excited but quickly feel a let down from the disconnection and bland, empty space I find myself. SO....I took Karim's approach. Below are just a few of the ideas that came to mind as I walked in the hot sun a few days ago.

We have come to know that this neighborhood was called "Automobile Row" and was the main place in Memphis to purchase and have cars repaired until the 1960's. Dealership lots are pretty boring places but usually dressed up with brighlty colored flags and ballons. They literally draw attention to rather visually un-exciting places.

While walking along Madison I wondered if the Trolley Line is ever going to function again and thought the wire grid strung above the street would be a perfect way to hang an object that is place specific and will function in the same way as car dealership would use them....I know this sounds cheesy but often times large quantities of simple forms produce unimaginable moments of beauty.

Along my walk I came across two sites of Nature taking over and one of them I am directly responsible for and makes me giddy like a school girl. Let me provide a little history. When I first moved to Memphis to go to grad school...I created my first piece that rejected the "white box" called Native Invasion. I placed hand made paper bracket fungus forms in areas that were overlooked in vast areas of concrete in Memphis. Each form contained native seeds and I hoped that my version of seed bombs would introduce native plants back to areas they once thrived. In addition I left small plaques at each site to mark the spot and let people know what had occurred there.

The next four photos are from the original placement and a revisit to the site after several weeks.

First Visit to N. Orleans site (2006)

Second Visit to N. Orleans site (2006)

I haven't went back to these sites for several years and thought I would check it out. I was soooo surprised when I found a happy little patch of Black eyed susans to greet me. I couldn't locate the sign due to a ton of overgrowth.

Re-introduction of plant life and greenry was on my mind when I walked by the back of the Wonder Bread Factory and saw what I think is one of the Royal Empress Trees that Kiersten has talked about. This tree is growing out of the most impossible sites and is literally growing out of the wall. I found its perseverance to be rather inspiring and very revelant to the work we are doing. I am going to have to agree that this tree should become more prevelant in the neighborhood.