Chloé Roubert and Gemma Savio’s It Takes Work to Get the Natural Look explores the tensions between modernist architecture and green spaces by foregrounding questions of labour, landscaping, and the constructed definitions of what is natural and what is cultivated. The piece was first staged at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany as the culmination of a three-month research residency. In 2017, it was re-presented at UTM to reflect on the institutional context of modernist architecture, at the site of the university. It Takes Work playfully points to the irony of using technology and labour, both agents of modernity, to attain a “natural look.” The lawn was left to grow for three weeks before the artists cut into it with the support of the Blackwood’s work-study students and the Groups department of Facilities Management and Planning at UTM. In addition to involving a labour-intensive process, Roubert and Savio’s project explores differential modes of viewership. Audiences can see traces of the intervention into the lawn at ground level, but the work does not become legible unless the audience is positioned above the work. The manicuring of public space here serves an aesthetic purpose, reflecting on practices of distanced appreciation of nature and proposing different ways of interacting with our natural and landscaped surroundings.