Color Me Agricultural
In obtaining provisions, man daily changes the planet’s appearance in the most unbelievable ways. One of the oldest and most aggressive ways is through agriculture. It’s estimated that over 50 percent of the Earth’s surface has already been ‘infested’.
Even though large agricultural plantations in Bolivia, Kansas, Libya and California may look infinite and monotonous from the ground, viewing them from a bird’s eye perspective, they form amazing abstract digital-artesque patterns, some even with a hint of Kleea and Hundertwasser.
This new agriculture-based artistic dimension was discovered by satellite shots from space, mostly NASA’s. The bird’s eye view, in addition to the newly found beauty of fields of wheat, rice, cotton or corn, yet again confirms the vastness of change that humankind is imposing on the environment
Some of the most distinct patterns are found in America’s Midwest arable land especially in Kansas, where perfect circles and squares prevail. The golden parts visible in NASA’s Terra satellite depict wheat ready for harvest. The brown details are newly harvested fields, while the green, leafy corn is still waiting for its time to come.
The starry patterns east of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia are actually radial soy fields as part of a project regarding intentional development of housing projects. ‘The Stars’ emerged after blitz deforestation and populating the region with arrivals from the Andean High Plains area. Every little community is a small town in its own right with a school, church, bar and football stadium spreading into a broader agricultural area.
The disappearance of Amazon rainforests in Bolivia can be traced via manipulated satellite shots from 2001 where remnants of once thick rainforest vegetation are marked bright red, while other parts are cleared as a passageway for cattle and hewing.
The valley of the Syr Darya River in Kazakhstan also comes up as highly unusual, this being an important mid-Asian cotton cultivation region. In 2010 the International Space Station astronauts captured numerous meanders of the river whose canals irrigate the cotton crops.
The free form without monotonous patterns is also present in the landscape art of Brasilian farmers on corn, potato, wheat, soy and rice fields south of the town of Perdizes.
Lonely circles in the desert of southeast Libya are slightly reminiscent of grain circles, located right next to the Egyptian border. In a country where the lack of rain-water prevents any kind of crop from growing, the circles, named the Al Khufrah Oasis, are in fact one of the largest agricultural projects and are irrigated by underground waters.
Zeeland, the most southern Dutch province consists of islands connected by embankments that protect the fragile agricultural and urban areas. The river and its mouth are separated from the North Sea thus creating unique landscapes.
Maja Gujinović
