Mt. Shamao is a site-responsive installation and performance inhabiting Lincoln Park’s Fern Room. The piece was made in collaboration with Milad Mozari through the series Florasonic by the Experimental Sound Studio. The work looks at man-made tropical paradises as connected to archives, importation, and utopias. For the past year, Mozari and Salmon have been researching in Taiwan at the Forestry Research Institute and drawing historical and metaphorical lines back to Lincoln Park Conservatory's past and present. While Ryozo Kanehira, Salmon’s great-grandfather was head of the Taipei Botanical Gardens in the early 1900s during the Japanese occupation. In the same period, Chicago created five botanical conservatories (including the Lincoln Park) which were displays of wealth and imperialism much like the botanical ventures by the Japanese in Taiwan. Playing with these parallel histories, Mozari and Salmon create a visual and sonic reflection that draw from the past archives and collected data of the two environments today. In conjunction with the installation was performative tours of the work. Movement and tableau take over the room, choreography which alludes to the study of plants, the growth pattern of trees, and the disconnectedness of displaced plants.
Performed by Alex Hayashi, Leroy Hearon, Carole McCurdy, Jasmine Mendoza, Milad Mozari, Harlan Rosen and Mitsu Salmon.
Sound installation audio