Contemporary Explores Human Consumption, Energy Production

Opening Friday, May 22, 2009 - August 22, 2009
The Contemporary Museum

Artist Hugh Pocock features findings of 63-day experiment in new exhibition “My Food My Poop,” an ecological exploration and meticulous examination of man’s relationship to the production of energy and issues surrounding the earth's natural resources.

For the project, Pocock became the subject of an intimate experiment to better understand the energy produced by our bodies from the food we consume each day. For 63 days, the artist weighed all the food and drink he consumed, and the waste he eliminated. He then calculated the difference between these weights as an approximate measurement of his energy production each day.

My Food My Poop will convey Pocock’s findings using sculpture and installation. A series of wood blocks of different sizes and weights illustrate the artist’s final food intake of 511 pounds, his overall waste production of 255 pounds, and his cumulative energy production of 253 pounds. Visitors can handle the blocks to help them visualize human food consumption and its relationship to energy output. A series of Pocock’s diary entries will line the walls of the exhibition space, chronicling his daily activities, thoughts about the project, and reflections on his use of natural resources.

Electricity in the exhibit will be generated by a solar panel mounted in the museum’s front window.

Pocock’s work complements the Contemporary’s The Reverse Ark: In the Wake, which also explores social and environmental themes. Created by the San Francisco-based Futurefarmers art collective, the exhibition examines the history of Baltimore’s mills and textile industry using locally sourced waste and surplus materials including fallen trees, hundreds of floorboards from abandoned row homes, cast-off paper, and surplus clothing and textiles.

The Contemporary Museum
100 West Centre Street,
Baltimore, MD
www.contemporary.org