found, made or purchased elements: mother of pearl shell, resin, rust, iron, acrylic, powdered blood, fresh water pearls, plastic pearls, dissolved mother of pearl shell crystals, textile, rope
For Daily Practice, I proposed a form of residency. Responding to my project ‘The Thief of Tides’ (2024), I investigated whether it is possible to create a new work that revolves around biofouling: the process by which marine organisms attach themselves massively to industrial surfaces - like ship hulls and clog pipes - and their capacity to sabotage the very industries that transport them.
In a speculative future, a shell-like organism overtakes a pipeline. The original structure has disappeared. What remains is a hybrid body: what once was steel and structure is now porous and alive. The work wraps itself around the walls of Daily Practice, creeping, growing, slowly reshaping the space.
Real pearls sit beside plastic ones. Their friction speaks of time, labor, replication. One born slowly in an oyster, the other mass-produced, churned out in seconds. Both caught in the current of global exchange.
Medusa’s hands rest heavy on Daily Practice’ meditation floor - echoing the weight of sea and silence. In some tellings, when Perseus beheaded her, her blood met the salt of the ocean and made coral. That story pulses here too. What does it mean to root yourself in a place that would rather see you erased? To hold fast, and in that holding, transform what you cling to? What does it take to build a reef?
Image credit: Beeldsmits en Suzanne Weenink