Layer Cake Lab

Sonja-Vanessa Schmitz & Eleanor Kathleen Grootoonk. "Layer Cake Lab" is a project in which we comment on the subject of public space pointing out the many ecological and social issues that have to be dealt with when placing works of art in public space. We were invited to create a work of art for the Westergasfabriek Park in Amsterdam at a location called the sculpture garden which is basically a grassy spot of about seventy square meters. The Westergasbabriek itself has a distinctive industrial history producing gas from coal until the late 1960s. This production had tar, petroleum and cyanides as it’s toxic byproducts leading to serious pollution of its immediate local environment. Even after the conversion of the factory into a park area this toxic waste remains buried in the ground, and this is one of the reasons for the sculpture garden being largely unused, as installing a work of art in a sustained way would mean that it had to be secured safely in the ground, which until this day is not allowed due to the circumstances indicated. Our goal of creating a site-specific work of art was also about creating a solution for setting up art in a hostile environment. We wanted to investigate the actual conditions of the upper and lower ground levels, and offer a long-term solution to install works of art in the sculpture garden. Eleanor Kathleen Grootoonk and me set up the "Layer Cake Lab Organisation" in order to cultivate this area of the park, starting off with a four week intense ground research on location. On a daily basis we excavated a number of ground samples in accordance to specific bore hole patterns. This took place in a performance setting ie. wearing protective suits with all the work accomplished in a secluded part of the grass area. All samples were analyzed and evaluated in our stationary laboratory consisting of special self-invented equipment and operating from the Artist-in-Residence building next to the test area. First we developed different remedial measures to expurgate the polluted ground, but then opted for a different approach namely the thickening of the upper layer with a special art-friendly ground and thus enabling suitability for contemporary Art to be grown on. We donated 40 cubic meters of this ground surplus to requirements to the City of amsterdam in the form of a big hill, dumped on location. The hill came with a bow and wrapped in a red ribbon. Dispensed over the 70 square meters of grass an excellent cultural medium could therefore be provided not only for future Works of Art but for a substantial improvement of their environment as well. A full documentation on the research process, the results of our laboratory analysis and remediation methods can be viewed online at the official website at www.layercakelab.org. Layer cake Lab is sponsored by Eurolab, De Rooij and Gemeente Amsterdam