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2023-24
Dimensions variable
Bayou water cyanotype on cotton, thread, driftwood shrub, potassium ferricyanide crystals, cement, steel, wire, glass jars, found material, dowels, filament
alter/altar is an immersive installation made from large swaths of collaged cyanotyped cloth and found materials. This work is my attempt at working through how layers of memory can be associated with a particular landscape; how each individual will have their own recollections of a space and will be different for each visitor (to both the visitors to a gallery and any particular landscape).
The cloth is made with bayou water cyanotype chemistry, processed multiple times to emphasize the imprint and erasure of memory in association with landscape. The fabric is then torn apart and stitched back together with transparent tulle sections blocked in, in reference to the fragmentation and fallibility of memory. Sixteen total panels are suspended from the ceiling in a random pattern that envelop its viewer. The panels are suspended from only a dowel and filament to encourage movement in the gallery, emphasizing the fluidity of memory and the water from which they are made. I encourage the viewer to walk through the cloth to feel like they are immersed in the memory of the landscape. The layering of all the panels together produce an effect where some areas more clear than others, emphasizing the fallibility of memory. In the center of the fabric panels is a driftwood shrub collected from the endpoint of the bayou. This is suspended from the ceiling, positioned high above like an altarpiece, with the crystallized plants from the slacken + swell installation alongside strips of cyanotype fabric, to complete the hanging sculpture. On the floor, immediately below the driftwood piece, are the jars, steel plates, and cement pieces from the slacken + swell installation laid upon a cyanotype cloth, completing the installation.