WILLIAM T. MEYER III

TRANSFER PROJECT, 2007

In collaboration with:

Robert J. Kent, Senior Extension Associate, NY Sea Grant, Cornell University

Margery Daughtrey, Senior Extension Associate, Department of Plant Pathology, Cornell University

The Transfer Project seeks to establish a sense of place among middle school students through a personal investment in the natural world. The physical realization, occurring as part of a curated art gallery show, serves to re-enforce the importance of this connection to the landscape. Participation by local professionals will develop looping patterns that connect the students to the community. Middle school students participating in a Natural Science class develop an understanding of native plant communities on Long Island. As a class assignment the students are asked to locate and photograph a preserved fragment of their native landscape. The artist then works with the class to select, within certain established parameters, one photograph to be recreated or ‘transferred’ into reality. The students then participate in a field trip with the artist to re-construct the chosen landscape photograph in Art Sites’ outdoor exhibition space. It is the selection through the eyes of the students that broadens the value of this project. There are multiple layers and intersecting components to this project that involve social interpretation of nature, community, ecology and art making. Community partners will include educators, native plant specialists, cooperative extension professionals, plant nurseries, state park officials, and parents. We hope to have the site planted by the students remain in place for some time.

Bio

William Meyer is an artist and professional landscape designer. William Graduated from Arizona State University with a BA in Studio art and a love of art history and non-western design. He traveled to London to study Museums and Galleries under an Oxford University Professor at Hamilton College. Meyers spent the next 10 years working for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Christie’s in New York. During this time he co-founded an international Rain Forest Group the Amanaka’a Amazon Network and a national environmental education organization, Worldview, where he currently serves on the board of directors. Most recently he completed a nationally recognized program of Landscape Design at the New York Botanical Garden. Studies of architecture, ecology, industrial design, and non-Western culture influence his art. His philosophy stems from a concept that ecology links all world cultures, and he pursues projects in this universal language. The work emerges as a kind of ecological paradox to technology and employs bio-mimicry with a machine aesthetic. To realize larger projects William often works collectively Currently, William is engaged in urban ecology, and design. He is exploring new directions in collaborative practice with the Nsumi collective. Landscapes he has designed can be found throughout the Hudson Valley and in New York City.

"Genesis Stream Restoration Project" 2006, photo by William Meyer III Here William supervises three Mahopac high school science classes installing a stream bank restoration/intervention he designed. The restoration is part of a 7 year ongoing student water quality monitoring project initiated by Robert Conick a science teacher at the school.