Prayer Flags for UBC Farm: Lori Weidenhammer

(These flags hang on the north side of the Heritage Orchard.)

Haiku Flags by Lori Weidenhammer

Biography:
Lori Weidenhammer is a performance-based interdisciplinary artist originally from Saskatchewan. She works with a variety of media including gardening, poetry, collage, and social interventions. She is interested in art as a conversation that transforms the relationships between the artist and the viewer and creates community bonds. works with students on identifying native plants, eating locally, gardening for pollinators (i.e. honeybees), and guerilla gardening. As her persona Madame Beespeaker, Weidenhammer creates a new tradition around the folklore of "telling the bees." This is Weidenhammer's third year as a volunteer at UBC Farm.

Artist Statement:
It was at UBC Farm that I first learned the meaning of the word "phenology" from a UBCstudent named Sarah Belanger. I am passionate about teaching children to be aware of the passing of the seasons, and in my research I realized that the art of haiku writing is the perfect form of creating that awareness. Haiku is a three line form of poetry (five, seven, and five syllables) that contains a seasonal word and often depicts a defining seasonal gesture. For my prayer flags I decided to write haikus inspired by UBC Farm. Written with attention to detail, marking the time and place of its creation, haiku can be used as a form of phenological data. While not traditional prayers per se, the haikus are created from a form of devotion, being written in a state of meditation, as one strives to be fully present in the moment. While my son was at the Farm Wonders camp, I headed out to the fields to write poetry about what I saw at the farm. I chose to install my flags near Sarah Belanger's research orchard as a gesture of gratitude for the way she has taught and inspired me at UBC Farm.

Copywright 2008, Lori Weidenhammer