The site was a 40 acre rock quarry filled with the waste generated from the construction of the Naigra power plant and thereafter covered with clay. The site in this state could not support a complex life web. It was the first full scale direct reclamation work in the arts, where 3,000 truckloads of earth recycled a spoil's pile into a meadow. The collection of earth was organized by Joshua Harrison and Betina Marks, who, having discovered that many of the local small towns had to redesign their sewage systems, talked the townships into donating the good earth to Art Park.
This work had the unusual property of costing less to make than not to make, as Art Park was closer than any other place to dump and each truckload received a tax credit for a donation to a work of art. Spoils Pile Reclamation was part of an ongoing process, begun in 1970 and continuing to the present, of making earth and generating complex grasslands. To create this grassland, the boy scouts and girls scouts in the region were commissioned to randomly collect seeds in the spring and fall, thereafter spreading on the reclamation site.
Included in catalogues: Art Park '77 and Art Park '78.
Where: Art Park, New York
When: 1977-78-79.
Who: Joshua Harrison, Bettina Marks
Commissioned by: Art Park in New York
one year after seeding the meadow grows
earth is mixed and spread
3000 truckloads of earth
the first truckload of soil is delivered
the proposal