seas rose
plastic bottles, hurricane Milton water, hurricane Harvey water, desiccants / existing hardware, brass, bamboo, heat sink, ash, conduit boxes, fire alarms, petrified wood, hurricane tape, outlet cover, protective net cover, phone wall plate, dentures, lampholder cover, plastic connector, coral, phone cord, clock weight, bread clips, lock box, magnet, fossil / hardware, light bulb, seahorse / plastic pallets, rice, mattress, tire, solar panel, tombstone fragments, ceramic fixture, horseshoe crab, activated charcoal filter, candle / ladder, alligator heads / chapbook
2024
*installed at Gallery 501, Howard W. Blake High School. Tampa, FL.
seas rose
Water is a violent gyre that rises and offers up people-trash and nature-trash. The coalescing of trashes and the emotional affect it creates is driven by unprecedented effects of climate change.
Glenn A. Albrecht writes in his book, Earth Emotions: New Words for a New World, that human-nature interaction can be split into four categories:
1st Nature: where one’s self and body are merged with the Earth
2nd Nature: where humans are still partially connected to nature but do so through mediation and technology
3rd Nature: where nature in human life is completely mediated through technology
4th Nature: where reintegration of first nature takes place, and it is now abstract and awful
He says that 4th Nature “events are already occurring in places like Florida, where king tides are bringing sea creatures such as octopus into people’s garages” and that this human separation from nature leads to a number of existential events. We lose culture, language, and our positive emotions towards nature. In its place we are given alienation, ignorance, and negative emotions: anxiety, hopelessness, and grief (to name a few).
In opposition to and persistence against these emotions, seas rose offers a physical embodiment of these emotions and a kind of care. The goal is to instill a complex emotional relationship with the climate-change related emotions. The purpose of this work is to ask viewers not to ignore climate change and its effects, but to confront their fears and anxieties, acknowledge how we are part of the issue, and find motivation and strength to be part of the solutions.