On the landscaped lawns of a corporate office park in Ohio, 109 human-sized concrete ears of corn memorialize the region's lost agricultural heritage.
The piece is also a tribute to agricultural researcher Sam Frantz, who used the site as a test plot for his corn hybridization experiments between 1935 and 1963. Cochran chose a double-cross hybrid called Corn Belt Dent for his polyurethane corn molds.
The result is curious: The concrete corncobs seems to mimic rows of military grave markers, nestling in the manicured grass of an anonymous corporate campus to form a cemetery for our buried agricultural unconscious.
Images: (1) Land Use Database entry, by the Center for Land Use Interpretation; (2) Corn cob fabrication, photos by Malcolm Cochran.
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