TAG CLOUD @FOODBLDG

The Food Building is a food business incubator which houses Red Table Meat Company, Lone Grazer Creamery, and Bakersfield Flour and Bakery.  It’s an interesting model for a number of reasons, a couple of which are that the businesses share resources and have a symbiotic relationship in terms of process, eg. the leftover whey from the Lone Grazer cheese-making process is fed to the hogs before they are butchered for Red Table Meat Company.

The Food Building was interested in conveying a sense of whimsy and delight in the space.  The Tag Cloud aims to address this desire: 2560 cattle tags hang at different lengths from mesh panels to create an undulating surface that flutters above visitors to the Food Building.

The installation is located in the center of the Food Building, at the convergence of its three incubating food businesses, and where visitors gather for events. The installation hides exposed duct and electrical systems above and lowers the ceiling in a space where previously its high ceiling dwarfs the visitor.

The Food Building Tag Cloud speaks to the symbiotic relationship between its businesses through color.  The blue tags are concentrated close to the Lone Grazer Creamery business, symbolizing its presence in the space, while the red tags are concentrated close to Red Table Meat and Bakersfield Flour, symbolizing these companies’ presence.  The concentration of blue tags intermingles with the red tags symbolizing the collaborative relationship between the operations within the food building. Food production by nature is a very slow, methodical, repetitive, and labor intensive process.  The Tag Cloud represents this quality of the work through the slow and methodical way in which it was made.

PROJECT CREDIT

DESIGN+FABRICATION: Molly Reichert
PARAMETRIC CONSULTANT: Mir Noh
FABRICATION: Daniel Dean, Alya Ansari, Ryan Dean, Jonathan Taga Neuman, Mark Borrello, Shawn Akbar

DETAILS

Tag Cloud @FoodBLDG
5’x8’ steel mesh panels, 6,000 yards of 10lb black fishing line, 2,560 plastic cattle tags
40’ x 10’ x 6’
2016