Project Title: Human/Nature/Plastics Melding Together: New Shapes for the Planet’s Geological Record

In response to receiving a Chalmers Arts Fellowship, I will be embarking on a series of self-directed residencies in 2018-2019 to research topics that investigate new areas of artistic investigation. I will be dedicating myself to observing and investigating ecosystems where organic and non-organic forms are no longer distinct, but rather are coalescing at a very fast rate. I will study both the material metamorphosis involving plastics and microplastics and new sculptural possibilities for discussing geological time.

My research and residencies will involve travel to Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands, BC), the Big Island of Hawaii, and the “Great Pacific Garbage Patches.” I will also travel across various regions in Japan to study the vocabularies of wabi-sabi aesthetics and the philosophy of imperfection.

My photographic series entitled “Plastic Tides” highlights objects from zones I traveled to where plastic flotsam has accumulated. Marine debris objects are often in different states of object-hood, from recognizable to wholly mutated. In other displays from this series, entitled “Plastic Paradise” and “The Afterlife of the Discards”, marine debris buoys and melted plastic specimens combine with pop-up book illustrations and anatomical models.