Client: The State of California, California Air Resources Board, and Hensel Phelps Construction

Overview

Highlighting air quality through innovation and sustainability, processes of mineralization are at work in the artwork Petrified Petrol Station by Allora & Calzadilla, where a petrol station is turned into stone. The public art collection at the California Air Resources Board (CARB) brings art into dialogue with climate change and environmental justice. The centerpiece of the collection, Petrified Petrol Station, a full-scale stone ruin of a petrol station sits at the heart of the campus.

The artwork is part of the public art program at the state-of-the-art CARB campus, one of the world’s largest and most advanced emissions testing and research facilities. The program was designed and implemented by Dyson & Womack and is the world’s largest permanent collection of public art addressing air quality and climate change.

Made from fossil-filled limestone, the sculpture incorporates ancient life forms, visible throughout, attesting to the organic plenitude of earth’s pre-history. Today, fossils provide the material used commonly to generate energy.

The petrol station, depicted in a state of fossilization, imagines the material trace of our current geological era in the future. It invites us to consider what the legacy of human culture will be in the history of our planet.

Goals

The CARB campus is known globally for its technical excellence and environmental leadership. The public art collection at CARB is the public face of that mission and both reflects and enhances the narratives of achievement, diversity, resistance, and ingenuity found in the histories and futures of CARB.

The CARB public art program was designed by Dyson & Womack as a model for public commissioning through a process that exhibited clarity in design and concept and stimulated well-being through environmental stewardship and community engagement. The program is a world-class collection of aesthetically and technically excellent artworks that model active stewardship of global environmental issues through sustainable practices and spark conversation about air quality and the role of California as a leader in public well-being and environmental sustainability.

Dyson & Womack develop public art programs with equity, sustainability, and accessibility in mind. These core values are based on our belief that art should be innovative and progressive when it comes to addressing the fundamental concerns of our time. Public Art has the unique ability to ask questions and pose answers while engaging and welcoming the audiences of today.

Process

Dyson & Womack were selected by the State of California to lead the CARB public art program from the development of the Art Plan to its final implementation. How the collection of commissioned artists and artworks came into being was an exercise in rethinking what a responsible future looks like in a world increasingly impacted by climate change.

The commissioning process included a requirement for a Statement of Sustainability and corresponding evaluation criteria. Outlined in the public art action plan, we asked artists to consider sustainability within the lifespan of the artwork, its maintenance, and long-term care. In addition, the commissioned artworks incorporate efficiency into their material use and sourced materials and fabrication locally. Dyson & Womack created a book, Air Resource, to memorialize this landmark collection of public artworks.

Dyson & Womack developed, curated, and project managed the program and each individual artwork acting as the liaison between the artists, the design-build team (ZGF and Hensel Phelps), and the project owner (the State of California). The project was a multi-year collaboration under the direct supervision of Dyson & Womack.

Additional Information

The California Air Resouces Board public art collection includes five permanent artworks by commissioned artists, Noé Montes, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Tomás Saraceno, Refik Anadol, and Allora & Calzadilla. The commissioned artworks explore the conceptual framework of air quality and climate change through the lenses of environmental justice and community, our collective and future climate potential, and the racial and social-economic impacts of air pollution. The collection is an explosion of creativity and innovation that takes sustainability, innovation, and human care and responsibility as its core message.