40 pages
Softcover, stapled
Published by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 2016
Design by Gretchen Kraus
ISBN: 978-0-9976615-4-5
This book serves as a journey through artist David Brooks’ exhibition, Continuous Service Altered Daily, at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (May 1, 2016 to February 5, 2017). This site-engaged sculptural array uses the disassembly of a 1976 John Deere combine harvester, a beacon of agricultural technology, as a material and spatial analogy for how we perceive the ecosystems that surround us. Every last component of the combine was arranged and displayed without a single piece excluded, in an ambling procession through The Aldrich’s grounds and galleries. Each arrangement was poetically likened to an ecosystem service. With Brooks as their guide, a group of eight local high school students made original drawings of the exhibition that interpret each object in relation to its given title and celebrate the vast natural environment and its myriad of ecosystem functions. The activities and prompts for all age groups explore how nature and culture are intertwined in the world around us.