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A On the Edge of Silence Lies Many Minds
Sculpture, Installation
2026-Ongoing
Size: Sculpture 1: 1.5m x 1m x 4m, Sculpture 2: 1.7m x 1.4m x 5m, Sculpture 3: 1.5m x 1m x 4m, Sculpture 4: 1m x 2m x 5m
Materials: Steel Rods, Elkhorn Coral Polyps, Staghorn Coral Polyps, Biodegradable Zip Ties
Wien
Installation
Project Description
I have grown up among ecosystems which have changed, died, and grown again. Some of these are underwater, and seem to represent all that we fear is alien on our earth. All that we fear is different.
As I grew older, I became more curious about these ecosystems. I spent more time among the coral species which sustain them. It was a space of refuge, a space where I belonged. Where all of my own differences could dissolve.
Though over time, as I began to accept my differences, my otherness, these ecosystems began to die. Through climate change, coral bleaching, and ocean acidification many of the corals which build the reefs I explored in my childhood are gone. I wanted to try and help them live again. That other life they had helped me discover as my own.
The installation consists of a series of metal sculptures which provide structure and habitat for critically endangered reef building species such as Elkhorn and Staghorn Corals, now declared functionally extinct. The sculptures were created through AnuBlue, a Caribbean ocean restoration organisation.
With the help of their marine scientists, the skeletal forms were installed on a dying barrier reef in Antigua, becoming bodies of renewal amidst decay. Scientists and volunteers care for the endangered species as they grow over the sculptures while the metal slowly degrades, engaging a continuous cycle of growth and change until the entire structure disappears, leaving only the coral, forming a new reef.
The installation and restoration processes which the sculptures engage investigate how we define our own species function in the ecosystems we are a part of, along with the timescales these interactions engage. By combining art and science the project ultimately explores how we can learn from marine life to reshape the human conception of time.