Portfolio > Against the Current

Multimedia Installation
Video Projection, Hospital Bed, Crumpled White Sheet, Hand Knit Salmon , Motion Sensor, Hidden Lights, and Sound of Water in the salmon streams.

Statement:

This installation is estuarine. It embodies the threshold of cyclical tidal pulses pushing into rivers, a turbulent mix of fresh water swirling with saltwater, radically changing the intricate complexion of the environment. Estuaries are sites of transformation between the worlds of the river and of the sea, transitioning from fresh water to salt water, precipitating a complex change in body-chemistry. The video of the salmon run embodies this transformative state with the exhilaration of fresh water pushing through one's system, swimming upstream against the current. Embedded in the imagery of the nude body tumbling in the water with the salmon, is the ceremonial ritual of passage from one state of being into another. Video of a salmon run with a a nude body tumbling in the water, is projected into a crumpled sheet on a hospital bed. Bodies in vibratory forms merge and correspond through a mythical resonance with the salmon.

The health of estuaries, which are incubators for young salmon and other wildlife are threatened by industrial and agricultural pollution. In addition, the building of dams prohibits the salmon from returning to their birthplace to spawn. This degradation of the salmon habitat has endangered their species. This devastation parallels the decline in the health of our environment, of the natural world, and the consequence to our health.

FLATFILEgalleries, Project Room, Chicago, May 2004

It embodies the threshold between a multiplicity of realms of experience.