Public Installations
Bankemper's public installations grow out of 20 years of commitment to creating urban gardens with the help of surrounding communities. The artist has worked on projects in New York, Boston, Palermo, Italy and San Antonio, Texas; as well as other cities addressing the relationship of people to nature as reflected in the contemporary urban landscape. Her garden projects are not ordinary or formal gardens; they range from restorative healing herb gardens, to gardens based on the shape of the human body, to planting 600 giant sunflowers, which grow from the ruins of a Southern flour mill. For each of her garden projects, the artist worked within a conceptual framework, each a kind of sculpture in nature as well as political action often blurring the boundaries between art and life.
