Mel Chin in "Consumption"

An interactive video game based on rug patterns of nomadic peoples and a garden with “hyperaccumulator” plants that clean up contaminated land are just two of Mel Chin’s unique collaborative ventures, incorporating botany, ecology, and even alchemy. “Making art, I think, is not about one track, one method,” he says. “The diversity of mediums and techniques is minor. But the diversity of ideas and how they survive and the methods that are transmitted is very important.”

The segment follows Chin in Detroit as he scouts locations for his latest project that converts arsoned houses into worm farms that benefit the local economy. Fractured by television static, Chin’s segment resembles a subversive broadcast.

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