THE ABUNDANCE PARADIGM

Nitzan Zilberman

Trained as an architect, Nitzan Zilberman specializes in curation, design strategy, and the creative synthesis of knowledge—past and future, text and image. She is Head of Curation at Oxman, a design studio and R&D lab that practices Nature-centric design. Nitzan is enthusiastic about exploring the intersection of design, technology, and science through the lens of biodiversity, aiming to address the issue of resource abundance in our society.

Art of Security Where Two Worlds Meet

An ecotone is the region between two different biological communities. The origin of the word comes from the marriage of ‘ecology’ in English and ‘tonos’ (tension) in Greek; thus, an ecotone is a place where two ecologies are in tension. It is referred to by biologists as an “edge effect”; a region that comprises characteristics of each one of its bordering biological communities as well as species that are not found in any of these ecologies, resulting in greater diversity of life. This increased productivity is clearly observable in nature, as mangrove ecologies (land and sea interface) and reef ecologies (coral and ocean interface) are some of the most highly productive natural systems.

In this essay, I wish to tackle this shifting of boundaries to study a peculiar form of ‘state of exception’ within a socio-political context: a place called the freeport. A freeport is a form of warehouse that offers secure and tax-free storage of fine art, among other goods. The freeport finds its historical roots in early modern times where internationally traded goods that had arrived overseas and could eventually be shipped elsewhere, would be placed in storage facilities to avoid local stamp duties and fees as they were still “in transit.” The contemporary freeport maintains these arrangements to an extent, with some key differences. Most importantly, the stored goods are no longer crops, flowers, or seeds but rather quality cigars, fine wine, expensive cars, and valuable art. One of the main reasons that freeports are emerging across the globe is due to a burgeoning class of art collectors with accumulations that are too large to hang on the walls of their homes. The business model of freeports capitalizes on this excess by offering an upscale repository with top notch security services, climate-controlled bunkers, and 24/7 conservators who preserve the integrity of the works. The legal clauses given to objects that are officially “in transit” also offer some financial advantages to art proprietors. For these somewhat controversial reasons, freeports clients’ identities are kept anonymous and the artworks remain unseen.

Before the 1970s freeports were run by public institutions on a non-profit basis, and national legislation demanded that art that was stored within their confines could only remain there for up to four years. Since then, freeports have been taken over by for-profit private companies, and there are notimelimitations for storage, meaning that once an artwork enters the freeport there is a high chance it will never be seen in public again.

Freeports are very large, gated, structures, with no windows and most commonly one guarded entrance. These extraterritorial entities do not veil themselves from their surroundings but instead impose a dominant and often violent presence. The ‘Arcis’ (fortress in Latin) Freeport and Fine Arts Storage in Manhattan is in Harlem, a low-income neighborhood. While the neighboring buildings are constructed out of red bricks, ‘Arcis’ is a glossy architectural spaceship; its footprint is six times that of each neighboring residential building. A sign on the door reads “WARNING: This is a US foreign trade zone. Whoever maliciously enters will be fined $250,000, face ten years in prison, or most likely both”. While this sort of aesthetic might suit an airport or border, placing it in the city creates an abrupt divide between the building and the neighborhood it is situated in. The facade creates a tension between one ecology and another—a tension that creates a disturbing, intense, and incompatible relationship between the interior and exterior of the freeport. This sense of exteriority strengthens in the interior of the facility.

The Divide Between Ecologies

The few users of the Arcis building range from clients, tax consultants, art conservators, and storage workers, all of whom are watched and monitored by a high-tech surveillance system that includes cameras, key-card readers and vascular scanners that scan the blood vessels in one’s fingertip. The entire space is ventilated with air circulation and filtration systems that change the airflow in the space 3 to 6 times a day and sophistically removes bacteria to create a purified environment. Storage spaces are climate controlled to a perfect 70 degrees Fahrenheit and 50 percent humidity to protect the artwork. Each storage unit is guarded by a single lock: the keys are stored in a biometrically controlled box that is tracked by a camera —every time a key is taken out, the act is recorded (a new species born in the freeport).

Display rooms are fitted with museumstyle lighting and equipped with hooks that can carry up to 4,000 lbs. This is a highly sophisticated and technological ecology; its temperature and atmosphere are in stark contrast to the sort of ecology that resides on the other side of its envelope. The artworks in ‘Arcis’ are worth millions of dollars, while its surrounding community is a lowincome neighborhood. This separation and demarcation help to produce and reinforce a very strong shield by the utilization of intense architecture and futuristic technology.

Beyond Storage

More sporadically, there are alternative solutions. The Luxembourg Freeport, for instance, opened its doors to the public for a viewing day last year, revealing art works from photographers such as Andreas Gursky to influential painters such as Picasso. This freeport belongs to a range of storage spaces that aim to maintain a cultural and legitimate appearance by situating themselves as part of the commercial art world. They achieve this “transparency” by hosting open exhibitions in their lobbies, hiring well known art-world personnel as chief staff, and regularly appearing in international art fairs. Highlighting the ecotonic elements the architecture of the freeport can produce, such as partially opening to the public, and raising awareness to the potential of it becoming a gradual shift instead of a clear demarcation, might allow for a more flexible outlook and a border that shifts.

Abundance vs Biodiversity

Can a term like “ecotone” help us relate to such an estranged typology as the “freeport”? At first glance, a forest and a freeport are seemingly opposite: one is organic and the other is artificial. However, the definitions of “biodiversity” and “abundance” in the Oxford English Dictionary are quite similar: Biodiversity is “the variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem.” Abundance is “the state or condition of having a copious quantity of something; plentifulness.” If the ecotone, as a border produced by nature, is so rich, why not apply its ruleset to man-made phenomena? Can we use ecological biodiversity to talk about socioeconomic abundance? We might prefer a myriad of life to a plethora of products. Let’s look at Freeport through the Forest.