Upwelling
Found steel drums (welded).
108” x 72” x 48”
Temporary installation view at the UC Davis Waste Water Treatment Plant.
Materials sourced from—and returned to for installation—the UC Davis Waste Water Treatment Plant.
“Upwelling” is an ephemeral welded amalgamation of steel drums which I scavenged from and ultimately returned to the site. The work was activated by bulldozers over the following weeks, which continuously crushed, rebuilt and re-arranged the piece.
Viewers were invited to participate in nature walks on site and to engage with ideas about waste streams, matter flow, decomposition and re-composition. We listened to a surprising diversity of biota—ravens emitting up to 30 different kinds of vocalizations, lizards crawling under scrap metal piles, shore birds probing the sludge fields for food, and songbirds lending voice to the site’s ephemeral sound signature.
2020
