Walker Tufts is US artist and collaborator who uses writing, art and dialogue to build new creative knowledge. At Elsewhere Museum in Greensboro, NC, he created A Field Guide to Empty Lots, 2015 that explores ecological and minority histories of empty lots in one of the neighborhoods. During artist residencies at CorwenField Studio in Wales, Tufts helped to develop an art strategy for the town and created the Dol Corwenna park that explored the present and future of the Welsh landscape in the face of climate change and biosecurity threats (2013-14). The Bibotorium, an educational salon during the Hidden City Festival in Philadelphia in 2013, included a time machine, tea bar, boatyard, and a public think-tank that explored drinking water’s future in Philadelphia. Tufts’ numerous projects were realized both in the US and abroad, where he lectures extensively.
Tufts expanded Kitchens & Capitalism, a long-term research project that examined the way different types of kitchens resist and/or replicate capitalism. The Nixon / Khrushchev kitchen debate shaped the initial direction of this work. Inventories of each item in a kitchen revealed the complex global network that comes to rest in our cabinets. Tuft completed an inventory of a contemporary kitchen in St. Petersburg and researched Soviet kitchens. Weekly, he hosted a public event as a performance and research project. The participants were able to critique and extend the work. After the residency, the collected materials were curated for the artist’s website and a small publication.
