AN ECO-ARTIST BECOMES HER LAST INSTALLATION

She considered the earth and its resources in everything she created. Her body was her final offering. The sculpture above is called The Gift of Water and it resides in Grossenhain, Germany.

Artist Jackie Brookner was a pioneer in the eco-art movement. Her functioning bio-sculptures endeavor to clean polluted water all over the world. When she died it was without question that she would be laid to rest in a manner that contributed to the planet and didn’t damage it.

Her last site-specific installation in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery then became her own body wrapped in an organic cotton shroud, placed on a rustic board and lowered into the soil she loved so much. Her headstone is a simple flat rock engraved with her signature. —Photos by Paulette Pettorino

Above: One of Jackie Brookner’s living installations—a giant tongue called Prima Lingua installed in La Plaza Cultural Community Garden on East 9th St and Ave C in Manhattan, made before her illness, and the kind of tribute to nature and the sensory realms for which she was renowned.

Jackie was wrapped in fabric and placed on a heart-shaped, bark-edged plank of salvaged linden wood.