Michael Mercil’s Beanfield 2006

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Beanfield Growing Outside the Wexner Center

Organic Public Art Project Result of Unlikely Partnership Among Three Departments

In a literally “groundbreaking” collaboration among multiple departments at The Ohio State University, artist and OSU professor Michael Mercil has created The Beanfield, a plot of organic public art just outside the Wexner Center near College Road. The Beanfield underscores the agricultural heritage of Ohio State, the university’s function as a producer of culture and agriculture, and its commitment to provocative public and social art. This two-year project is the result of a partnership among the Wexner Center, the Living Culture Initiative in Ohio State’s Department of Art, and the Social Responsibility Initiative of Ohio State's College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (FAES). It’s also a nod to Henry David’s Thoreau’s own “Bean-field” that he planted and wrote about in Walden in the mid-19th century, as well as Ohio State's role as a land-grant institution.

“Once again, the center finds itself in partnership with unexpected colleagues across campus as a result of an artist-based initiative that draws upon the expertise of a non-arts discipline—in this case, agricultural sciences,” says Wexner Center Director Sherri Geldin. “As a cultural institution dedicated to research and experimentation in multiple fields, The Beanfield is a natural (and organic) fit with the Wexner Center, and we are delighted to be collaborating with a highly respected artist and Ohio State faculty member, Michael Mercil, to realize his ambition. This project also complements a program initiated by the Center three years ago entitled Art and the Environment, which explores the often surprising intersections between the two.”

Bill Flinn, director of the university’s Social Responsibility Initiative, said the project is leading to a greater understanding and collaboration among very different members of the campus and Columbus community. “The project isn’t just raising beans—it’s raising social discussion and awareness about culture and agriculture,” he says. Flinn and other colleagues from FAES began meeting with Mercil and his partner, Ann Hamilton, at their studio in early 2005 to talk about how the cultural and agricultural parts of the university overlap in ways not often recognized. The Beanfield is one result of those conversations, Flinn said.

The 650-square-foot Beanfield is visible from College Road, just across from the Oval, outside on the western edge of the Wexner Center. “It’s important that we’re here, overlooking the symbolic center of campus,” Mercil says. “It places this project in relationship with the life of the campus as it passes by every day.”

Beans by the numbers
Planted over the July 4 weekend with the help of art students and colleagues from FAES, the four varieties of beans (Kentucky wonder brown, rattlesnake, white half-runner, and blue lake stringless) spread around 49 sets of poles have begun to grow up the natural wood poles (borrowed and recycled from a Franklin Park Conservatory exhibition). In all, 1,176 seeds were planted by Mercil and his students. The 650 liriope plants (similar to the daylily, often called “lilyturf” or “border grass”) that previously occupied the space have been transferred to the Sherman Art Studios on OSU’s West Campus (the liriope will be nurtured and returned to the Wexner Center at the conclusion of the project). In addition, nutrients are being added to the soil, making it a healthier plot than it was before. After the beans are harvested in the fall, the plot will be rejuvenated with winter plantings until the following spring, when the cycle begins again.

The Thoreau connection—and other inspirations
In July 1845, Henry David Thoreau left his home in Concord, Massachusetts to spend two years, two months, and two days at Walden Pond. Earlier that spring, he had planted 2 ½ acres of beans in a public clearing between his lakeside cabin and the main road. In Walden, his account of his sojourn, “The Bean-Field“ marks a central chapter where Thoreau articulates the relationship between nature, self, and society. This chapter inspired Mercil’s own beanfield. Mercil adds that Thoreau planted his beanfield “as much to cultivate conversation as to cultivate a crop. He used it as a measure of his relationship to others in the community, and to himself.”

In addition, notes Mercil, “The Beanfield evokes the practice of ‘lifelike art’ by Allan Kaprow or the ‘social sculpture’ of Joseph Beuys, to creatively shape and engage our ecological encounter with the world.” Mercil believes his own beanfield will accomplish much the same thing. “Without the beanfield, we’re having a conversation. With the beanfield, our conversation has consequence. The wish of all artists is to generate a conversation of consequence.” Mercil plans to dry the beans after they are harvested to make seed packets to be distributed as part of the Living Culture Initiative, and to make bean soup, the centerpiece of a meal planned to celebrate the project.

Michael Mercil, artist and OSU professor

Breaking ground, preparing the plot of land

Seedlings, the beanfield begins to grow

Wexner Center plot, plot as seen from The Oval