While Actions for the Earth: Art, Care & Ecology will end its run at The Block in July, a newly installed piece of the exhibition will continue to bloom in front of the museum through the summer. Memory of Nature, a site-specific artwork by the Indonesian artist Arahmaiani, is a garden of native plants and flowers that changes each time it is presented, exploring the link between nature and religion by taking the form of a garden bed in the shape of a mandala design. 

In the Hindu-Buddhist cosmology, the mandala symbolizes the universe and its inhabitants. Mandalas are often used in spiritual and meditative practices and can take different forms. Arahmaiani’s use of the mandala here recalls Buddhism’s emphasis on the interconnectedness and mutual dependency of all beings.  

Presenting and installing Memory of Nature put The Block in collaboration with a campus-wide coalition of students and faculty. Eli Suzukovich III, Assistant Professor of Instruction in Northwestern’s Environmental Policy and Culture program and faculty affiliate of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research Institute, chose the selection of native vegetation used in the planting, and Block Museum Manager of Public Programs Christiana Castillo shaped them into the living sculpture’s mandala design. 

“Arahmaini’s living artwork Memory of Nature invites viewers and community members to consider the interconnectedness of all things, and to me is a reminder to move away from individualism,” Castillo said. “Within Arahmaini’s mandala shaped garden bed I had the privilege to design the native plants that were chosen by Professor Eli Suzukovich with Block Museum Student Associate Kevin Foley.” 

A range of Northwestern community members, including members of Northwestern’s Prairie Cats Ecological Restoration Club, also participated in planting Memory of Nature and will be a continued part of the watering schedule while the plants grow outside The Block. In an extension of Suzukovich’s ongoing work on Northwestern’s campus, after these native flowers grow within Arahmaiani’s mandala they will be carefully replanted to help stabilize, nourish, and sustain Northwestern’s lakefill.

“It has been beautiful to see NU community members care for this living artwork,” Castillo added.