Art review: A braille word only visible from the sky

What good is a braille word that one can only read from a plane? 

You might just as well ask what good is vacant land that no one can legally use? 

“Turf tagging” is an exhibition of prototype models created by the artist David Stephens. These models present ideas for potential sculptures that could occupy some of the approximately 40,000 vacant lots in the city of Philadelphia. 

The show, if heavy on concept, is light on finished artworks. What is on view at the Slought Foundation is a puzzling array of large wooden structures — those structures can be combined with a tool to create circular mounds of earth that reach 5 feet in diameter and 2-and-a-half feet tall. What are the mounds? They are earth-worked giant braille dots and if the project were completed, the dots would spell out the word “acknowledge.” 

It’s a strange, thought-provoking experiment — taking a communication device and rendering it nearly useless by increasing its scale to such a degree. But in a city with so many unused, ignored space, perhaps the acknowledgment is the key. 

Though the end product would be a braille word, to a passerby the work would simply look like an atypical garden with strange raised mounds of earth covered in plants. If realized, the project would be a green, ephemeral outdoor structure that could be seamlessly landscaped into almost any lot — but there are currently no plans to install the work. 

Stephens, now 72, was declared legally blind in 1979. “Turf tagging” follows on the heels of a showing of his more traditional stand-alone sculptures at the Center for Art in Wood earlier this year. 

“Turf tagging,” on view through August, Slought Foundation, 4017 Walnut St., 215-701-4627, slought.org.