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Within/Without
Within/Without is an invitation to engage with the emotions we face living within a world of uncertainty, without concrete solutions. It is a physical manifestation of my own emotional entanglements in trying to imagine ways out of climate chaos.
I am questioning how we can create space for consciously cultivated hope and understanding within a present where history is being written by each and every one of us.
I received 600 pounds of ghost net[1] from Ocean Voyages Institute[2]—just a “tiny” portion of an 80,000-pound haul of fossil fuel derived plastic waste from the Pacific Gyre[3]. I view this “gift of garbage” as a bold metaphor for the micro and macro challenges we face as inhabitants of Earth. The installation offers abstractions of clichéd iconography, through a Pepper’s Ghost illusion in which a sheet of glass is used as an optical beam splitter to superimpose one scene upon another. Neon, light, and mirrors create further illusions within the space. The neon flashes SOS as its electrical charge evokes capitalism’s rapacity to consume, while the use of glass alludes to our ecological fragility.
[1] Ghost nets are abandoned or lost fishing nets that catch and entangle each other—often in giant masses that ensnare marine mammals and damage coral reefs.
[2] Ocean Voyages Institute is a nonprofit organization based in Sausalito, California that was founded in 1979 by a group of conservationists, educators, and international sailors. They are focused on the preservation of our oceans and education, especially of our youth, to find ways to stop the abuse of our oceans by single use plastic and thoughtless commercial practices.
https://www.oceanvoyagesinstitute.org
[3] The North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone, a.k.a., the Pacific Gyre is one of the five main gyres worldwide where wind-driven surface currents converge in our oceans. These gyres collect massive amounts of plastic waste that not only appear on the surface but infiltrate deep into the water column as a sort of “ocean smog.”
https://www.5gyres.org/faq