Commissioned by the Department of Art and Art History’s Alumni Sculpture Garden, in collaboration with the Department of Biology, artist Alyssa Miserendino conceptualized, designed, and created this site-specific mural in 2020 for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The mural depicts the frequencies of 16 different plants living within the garden, represented by gold lines. Gold was chosen to symbolize one of the few elements found in its pure form in nature: metal. It is virtually indestructible, yet incredibly malleable. Gold doesn’t easily react with other elements, thus maintaining its original properties, and is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity. While real gold doesn’t exist on the wall, this color was chosen for site specificity, as the wall remains in shade for most of the day.
The plants were selected from within Sam W. Hitt’s Medicinal Plant Garden, in collaboration with Dr. Alan Jones (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). Each chosen plant’s frequency was recorded using a custom-made electrocardiogram (ECG/EKG) designed by Quran Karriem (Duke University). The collected data was then translated into an image using a custom application designed by Lily Han (New York University).
Created by Alyssa Miserendino (2020).