Description:
Serpentine Mounds was a site-specific environmental art installation featured as part of the Toronto zoo arts Festival, which ran from June 29 to September 29, 2004, at the Toronto Zoo. The installation was composed of 42 obsolete cars, which were stripped and cleaned to remove the toxic elements and embedded in two mounds of earth, covered with turf and ground cover. It was 45,000square feet by 27 feet high (13,716 square meters by 8 metres high),and was located on unused land in the African area of the Toronto Zoo. Serpentine Mounds transformed a conventionally landscaped area in to a sculptural environment.
Serpentine Mounds portrayed the continuing battle between our natural world and our love affair with the automobile — our modern beast of burden — and the promises offered by “ever-improving" technological innovations. Serpentine Mounds was not only a visual art installation with fundamental visual concepts that triggered interest and questions, it was a means from which to express ideas of environmental conservation and sustainability. [1]
References
[1] “Serpentine Mounds.” Ian Lazarus, Badanna Zack “Serpentine Mounds". Accessed January 12, 2021. http://www.ianlazarus.com/Earthworks/SerpentineMounds/SerpentineMounds.html.
Additional Information
“Press Release.” Toronto Zoo | Press Releases. Accessed January 12, 2021. https://www.torontozoo.com/press/releases.asp?prs=040510.
“English Report – Vie Des Arts.” Érudit. La Société La Vie des Arts, March 30, 2010. https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/va/2004-v49-n195-va1098364/52711ac/.
