‘The Controlling Controlled’ Installation

Kim Fifield

The Controlling Controlled

Oat plants, PVC Plastic, knife, water sprayer, growing system, rope

If we have a value, how negotiable is it?

For example, if we say we value kindness, is it a true value if we are only selectively kind to others or think unkindly of ourselves?

If we value honesty, is it a true value if we only selectively disclose information to others or are not fully honest with ourselves?

If we value critical thinking, then is it truly a value (or critical) if we don’t examine or acknowledge and give light to what may be contrary or contradictory for fear of undermining a stance?

The acknowledgment of an issue creates a space for adjustments within a bandwidth.

I feel a twinge of unkindness for killing my plants for my practice. There's a humorous absurdity to that, but maybe it stems from empathic tendencies. Given that I feel so much of what other people feel, I perhaps extend that empathy to plants, which is compounded with research I have undertaken into plant cognition and responses to threats and harm. But to acknowledge that ridiculousness creates an interesting space; a dark humour. It is a path of thought that is its own rhizome.

I feel frustrated by resource availability, resource norms, culture, things I know and conversely, those things I don’t. There are these incessant obstacles that make it hard to fully embrace eco-conscious stance. Plastic, plastic, and more plastic—it seems so all-encompassing in that it encroaches into everything. It is these confines of a tree I struggle to escape.

Currently, I feel I am stuck in a perpetual loop as the controlling controlled.