Portfolio > Holder of Idols

Holder of Idols
FLATFILEgalleries Project Space September 2005

Aquarium habitats perform potent rituals. We domesticate fish as artifacts of natural world, creating a portal into this other realm, and embracing the cadence of tidal rhythms. The viewer occupies the liminal space between protector of nature and exploitation of nature. - between real and synthetic ecologies. Ecologies are shifting, blurring the boundaries between natural and synthetic.

The natural world with its mystical and mythological character, is a conduit that sparks our creative lives. Experiencing the natural world, the forest with its dance of light and shadows through the leaves of trees, hiding microcosms under leaves, inspires a curiosity about the world. Storm clouds, wild waves balanced by bright, clear skies provide insight into the contrasts and even conflicts integrated into our spirits.

With the blurring of the boundaries between natural and synthetic, we neglect our connection and role in the natural world. The expansion, even explosion of fish hatcheries to support sport fishing, and fish farming for the food market, mask the reduction of the number of natural fish, with an increasing disappearance of fish and even the extinction of some genus of fish. For example, the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon has been closed to salmon fishing this year because of very low numbers of salmon returning up river to spawn.

The beauty and enjoyment of fish in an aquarium creates an invaluable psychological resonance, a calmness, a connection with nature. I advocate for the meaning of aquariums to be refocused on the preservation of our natural ecology. We must question the viability of fish hatcheries and fish farms as a means of maintaining fish populations, in conjunction with cleaning rivers, streams and estuaries to provide healthy environments for natural fish to prosper. As indigenous people demonstrated, reasonable limits on fishing also help promote healthy fish populations. Fish are collaborators in our ecology, and in fact provide a mirror to our own health and well being.