Prairie Colorfield

April 24 to April 27, 2025 at EXPO Chicago – Booth 145

Art and Botanics Workshop on March 21 beginning 12-2 PM at Chicago Cultural Center – Learning Lab, 1st Floor South, 78 E. Washington St.

This installation by Luftwerk captures and reimagines fragments of the landscape we inhabit as a reminder of the loss of native prairie. The color field on the walls, Acres of Blooms, is made from botanical pigments. The abstracted landscape painting references a time when prairies occupied two-thirds of the midwestern landscape, rich in biodiversity, a holistic interconnected ecosystem of healthy soil, abundant flora, and myriads of bees and butterflies.

The interactive work, Extraction, is a mound of sand and botanicals. Visitors are invited to choose from the color spectrum of the botanicals to add botanicals to the mound. The work represents that prairie that has been removed to make way for construction, destruction, and other changes to the land. By visitors adding to Extraction, they acknowledge their daily participation in the changes to the land. As an exchange they are encouraged to plant pollinator seeds.

Luftwerk is the artistic duo of Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero. Since founding in 2007, the practice has developed a significant body of work that explores the interplay of light, color and space through the exploration of data, nature, history, and architecture. Their work is multi-faceted, taking the form of installations, site-specific interventions, and artwork, engaging with landscapes, architecture along with galleries, museums, and art centers.

Installations and artwork by Luftwerk have been exhibited broadly at institutions including: Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL; Fosdick-Nelson Gallery, Alfred University, Alfred, NY; Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville, TN; Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA; Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich; Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL and Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago, IL. Throughout their practice, Luftwerk has develop a robust portfolio of projects that engage with notable modern and contemporary architecture including: Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Chicago, IL by Gehry Partners;  Barcelona Pavilion, Barcelona and Farnsworth House, Plano, IL by Mies van der Rohe; Ford Residence, Aurora, IL by Bruce Goff; Millennium Park, Chicago, IL by SOM; Fallingwater, Mill Run, PA and Robie House, Chicago, IL by Frank Lloyd Wright; and Netsch Residence, Chicago, IL by Walter Netsch. The artists have realized numerous large-scale permanent public and private commissions in Atlanta, Calgary, Charlotte, Chicago, Harare, Tampa, and Kansas City. They have received numerous awards, including project awards from the AIA Chicago, Graham Foundation, and the Illinois Arts Council. Their work is in several public and private collections including the Public Art collections of Chicago and Fulton County, Museum Buchheim, USF Institute for Research in Art. Their work has been featured in publications such as Artforum, Hyperallergic, Time Magazine, The New Yorker.