1,000 Square Feet (0.00701459%) Project
1,000 Square Feet (0.00701459%) is a long-term project rooted in site-specific time spent observing waterways. Started during a 2017 residency at the Tides Institute in Eastport, Maine, the end result of the project will be 1,000 print-based images inspired by the horrific mass of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This is the first project in a new trajectory of community research and studio work dedicated to bringing awareness to the issues of plastic contamination and garbage in our oceans.
The work is site-responsive and reflective of a multitude of global shorelines - each print is made with handmade paper created with collected local water and monoprinted with imagery created from plastic debris that is collected on site - focusing on place-based information as source material. To date, this project has explored and includes dedicated segments based on the shorelines of sites in Maine, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Benin, West Africa.
An important element of this work is the sampling of local water as a resource for my papermaking process. I float paper fibers in the site-specific water to create each sheet of paper. Through working with handmade paper, I engage with water - in this case site-specific water - to create imagery that is directly tied, both materially and conceptually, to that same water. Utilizing local water in this way is integral to the project; physical and conceptual traces of specificity remain in the paper object long after the individual fibers of pulp have coalesced and dried. The paper, and the resultant artwork, is deeply layered with remnants of that moment, becoming an artifact of a performatory process.
