“Binding Time,” 2015 floral compost, fabric, 15 x 11 x 8 feet. Photos by Daniel Kukla.
(scroll down for project description)
"The Tide," 2015, black paper, salt crystals, found rope and branch, 11 x 3 x 5 feet
I was an artist in residency at Wave Hill in 2015 for their Winter Workspace Program. While I was in residence, I created an immersive installation.
“Binding Time” (2015) was an installation made from woven fabric and greenhouse compost. While I was at Wave Hill’s Winter Workspace Residency, I developed a daily ritual of walking to the compost heaps behind the greenhouses to collect the discarded flowers and plants. In the studio, I wove these clippings together with found fabric and eventually created a porous, ephemeral structure. Visitors could enter and walk within the space. I was inspired by the idea of transient notions of home and wanted to create a space that was in a state of impermanence. As time went on, the flowers continued to dry, emit pungent floral and earthy scents, and change color and shape.
On the other side of the space was “The Tide” (2015), a scroll of black paper that had been immersed in salt water for about a month. Over the course of the month, the water had evaporated and crystallized the salt onto the paper. It was then suspended and hung over the branch and rope. At the time, I was using salt in various projects as a metaphor for longing and preservation, regarding intergenerational, diasporic familial and terrestrial connections. My Lola in the Philippines had recently passed away, and I began thinking about salt in landscapes and inside the body - the ocean that separated us physically, our ancestral connection through blood, the grief that was expressed through tears. Unpredictable processes and state transformations, such as evaporation and crystallization, became important catalysts as they embody themes of mortality, grief, and temporality.