Martian Gardener Project

2024—

Following the loss of contact with Mars in an imagined future, The Martian Gardener Project constructs an archive of recovered traces. Signs of green persistence, scattered across the red dust. Salvaged from abandoned greenhouses and private enclosures, the artifacts reveal fragile micro-biomes sustained in a barren environment. The project moves between blueprint and elegy, hinting at life sustained through ingenuity, adaptation, and tenacious devotion. Many bear the marks of failure: prototypes that never worked, designs abandoned mid-course, records of stalled growth and structural collapse. Cultivation appears not only as survival strategy, but as ritual, a way to stay connected to Earth’s life forms across profound isolation.

Threaded through these works are echoes of restless inquiry and invention: plant-inspired mechanisms designed to scatter sensors across the Martian surface; blueprints and drawings envisioning bioengineered species, hydroponic structures, and emergent forms of resilience. Records of plant trials mingle with glimpses of unanticipated life, while plant elegies offer meditations on loss, memory, and transformation. Each piece traces an intricate dance of experimentation and adaptation, a testament to how life’s possibilities are continually rewritten through both intention and chance.

The Martian Gardener Project invites reflection on creative persistence as an act of resistance and hope, shaping new expressions of life, beauty, and meaning on Martian soil.

Cybotan, E-Lichen (Collaboration with Dan Mikesell)