Piece Title: Theater of Collaborative Survival
Date: June to December 2019
Show Title: DEPTH
Venue: Science Gallery Detroit
Curatorial Team:
Rachel Frierson, Director of Programming, Detroit RiverFront Conservancy
Seitu Jones, Visual artist and scientist, McKnight Distinguished Artist and Loeb Fellow in the Harvard Graduate School of Design
Team: Elizabeth Hénaff, Heather Parrish (University of Iowa), Léonard Roussel (ARUP New York) as Scope Collective
Summary: How can we imagine partnerships with unusual organisms for collaborative survival on our changing planet? The microscopic residents of the Gowanus Canal are brought to life through enlarged photoreactive prints, generative sound, and live microscopy visuals.
Description: This installation is centered on a set of aquariums, each containing living microenvironments sampled from the Gowanus Canal. The environment of the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, NY, is emblematic of the many post-industrial Superfund sites across the country. These sites were once important spaces for production and manufacturing industries that have since changed locations, leaving behind a material, economic, and social legacy of toxicity. However, the sediment of the Gowanus Canal contains communities of microorganisms adapted to these seemingly uninhabitable industrial conditions. This unique microbiome encodes bioremediation functions such as the degradation of hydrocarbons and industrial solvents, revealing a vibrant ecosystem in conditions previously considered devoid of life. Its microscopic residents are brought to life through enlarged photoreactive prints, self-generative sound, and live microscopy visuals. Here we explore the multiple facets of the complex relationship we have with contaminated waterways: its impact on the environment, on human health and well-being, the sense of place, the politics of pollution and gentrification and the translation of scale necessary to comprehend microscopic ecologies.
Materials: 20 ft. octagonal room, laser microscope projecting contents of water droplets, jars of Gowanus Canal sludge, grow lights, 8 cyanotype prints of micro-organisms overlaid with uv-reactive images of Gowanus urban environment (36"x36"), lights alternate between white and UVlight, 8-channel granular audio of urban sounds generatively emulating bacterial growth patterns
Installation View
Overview of immersive environment: photoreactive prints, live culture jars, laser microscope
Detail View
Catalog
