Rochelle Goldberg

Narrator: Chia plants growing on a carpet spread across the room is part of Rochelle Goldberg’s Nowhere, Now Here. Some of the plants have just recently sprouted; others are already on the way to decay.

Rochelle Goldberg: I wanted a material that would speak to an idea of emergent growth and life cycle. Often, when I do the piece, a common question is, "Is this real?" Of course, what do you mean when you're asking if a living plant is real? The chia readily engages with that kind of attitude because it has this almost virtual green aesthetic to it. It's almost somewhere between grass, and moss, and an unknown future plant.

The ceramic forms within the composition of the carpet are these wreathing entanglements of serpent segments that are coiling into shapes of pelicans and swans, and the determination of the species is never fully reached. It's always in a process of emerging or unbecoming.

There is a kind of social engagement between these diverse entities. Between the seed, the ceramic, and the steel, they're all talking to each other. That conversation then opens up, through the chia leaking out and swarming, and infecting various zones and areas, in and around the other sculptures by my peers.