Category: Our Unique Spaces

Hummingbirds in the Garden

Over the last few summers, we have watched the fervent nest-building activity of the hummingbird population that favors our secluded, lush garden. Their bricolaged nests are small enough to fit in a human child’s hand and are often built on the thinnest branches of a tree where they become invisible to the human eye. Each year, we would stand watch over these nests as soon as the mother bird began her quiet occupancy (in itself, a sight to see) but we never saw any chicks; their birth was becoming as legendary as an elephant’s death.

This year, we left for the three day 4th of July weekend with mom still sitting quietly on her nest. When we returned the following Tuesday, the mom was gone and the nest was empty. We later found out that Steven Eighmey, our plant manager, had stopped by the Institute on July 4th. While most humans were lying on beaches or flipping burgers in backyards, the hummingbirds in our garden were getting ready to leave home.

So here, finally, our first documented graduating class of hummingbirds from the ICI garden.

Laboratory Blackboard


It’s a brain.A visual think tank. An organization that was formed around an idea rather than a medium or a method or a politics. A spiritual and intellectual comfort zone.Not an exhibition space. A space that exists but not here; always over there, somewhere else. Not a Museum,but we have a permanent collection. We’re more like a warehouse,a self-generating archive We’re something like a museum of natural history, or a reliquary with ancient bones wrapped up and hidden.Like a hidden museum.We havePublications,books, with collections of essays that follow different themes. They’re sometimes very esoteric We’re amateurs in the old sense; like the 19th century, like the Renaissance.We’re a group of artists, writers, and scientists who work collectively with no ego; a combined entity. Artists and writers who give up authorship to gain collective authorship. Can be public. Can be activist.THE AIDS CHRONICLES. ICI is ephemeral; a gaseous substance.Something that unfolds.something that must be presented. It’s a place of performance; an archeology; projects dig at something. Visitors have to dig into what¹s there. ICI is a mythical undefinable possibilityit provides opportunities for the unexpected. It is a secret society. A drinking society. A home for lost idealists.