Bonnie Sherk

Bonnie Ora Sherk (b. 1945) is an American landscape architect, planner, educator, performance artist, and founder of "The Farm" and "A Living Library." Sherk is a professional artist who exhibits her work in museums and galleries around the world. Her work has also been published in art books, journals, and magazines.

Career

Sherk is said to be the developer of a systematic approach to environmental transformation and education. Much like Green-Powered Digital Gateways, Sherk's approach integrates interdisciplinary, standards-based, hands-on learning, community ecological planning and design, and state-of-the-art communications and technologies.^[1] Sherk's goal is to integrate with local resources such as, human, ecological, economic, historic, technological, and aesthetic with hands-on activities including the community. ^[2]

Beliefs

In an interview with Peter Cavagnaro, Sherk shares her love and passion for the environment. She believes that the environment is a "beautiful" and "diverse" place and that it is the most practical media for art because it has the ability to reach communities near and far.^[2]

Major works

A Living Library

A Living Library was Sherk's work that consisted of transforming buried urban streams and asphalted public spaces into thriving art gardens. She transformed these spaces in order to build education centers for children in communities in San Francisco and New York City.^[3][3]

Public Lunch

Public Lunch was one of Sherk's most well-known performance pieces. The piece consisted of Bonnie eating lunch in cages with various animals, such as lions and tigers, at the San Francisco Zoo. She did this on a Saturday at 2pm, during normal feeding time and prime spectator watching.^[2]

References