I build live algae bioreactors in a variety of repurposed femme signifying vessels including perfume bottles, display cubes and vintage high heel decanters. These bioreactors support live microalgae that absorb carbon and produce oxygen for us to breathe.
I also make bioplastics from marine macroalgae to integrate into installations, collage and performance. I dye them with phycocyanin extracted from green microalgae and with shimmery eyeshadows.
Algae Bioreactor Installation at MASS MoCA alumni residency, 2022
High Heel Algae Bioreactor, Studio 9D Chelsea, 2022
Perfume Bottle Bioreactors installed at Flux Factory on Governors Island, 2023
Perfume Bottle Algae Bioreactor and Algae Bioplastic on Cinderblock
“Camp Paradice” installation at the Other Art Fair curated by Kat Ryals (Paradice Palase). Also shown photo by Tiffany Smith and rug by Kat Ryals. 2022
artist-made algae bioplastic, 2021
artist-made algae bioplastic, 2021
Algae Panes, 2021
Algae Experiments, 2021
The video depicts queer artists and activists frolicking with wigs and sometimes struggling to stay upright in the tide on Riis Beach, a queer and BIPOC beach in NYC. It is projected through a tank containing saltwater, causing the light to refract and rainbow and the image to split into three color channels. The sound is made from gritty recordings captured of waves underneath the sand and a ship’s distress signal-meant to forewarn of something unknown that is to come.
Elements are made from the wigs shown in the video. The sculpture is made from wig hair left in the tide to attract detritus. It picked up bits of shell, fish bones and a bracelet. The monoprints are printed from the synthetic hair and wig caps.
Tidewrack” refers to the evolving space on the shoreline where the mixture of seaweed and synthetic materials are deposited by a receding tideline. This creative tangle may survive—churned and changed—or be decimated and swept out to sea. The tidewrack is temporary, collaborative and evolving. I make this work while contemplating what it’s like to create and hold space together in celebration while simultaneously holding anxiety for the next displacement.
Tidewerack March 2024 in Death Rites curated by Marian Casey, an apexart NYC project in San Antonio, Texas (iphone walk through)
Tidewrack at MASS MoCA residency, 2020
Tidewrack at MASS MoCA residency, 2020
TIdewrack at MASS MoCA residency, 2020
Tidewrack, overhead projections of sand & algae at MASS MoCA residency, 2020
Tidewrack at SomoS Berlin, 2020 in Futureless curated by Oliver Dougherty
Tidewrack at SomoS Berlin, 2020 in Futureless curated by Oliver Dougherty
Tidewrack at SomoS Berlin, 2020 in Futureless curated by Oliver Dougherty
Tidewrack Monoprint, 16 x 24”
Tidewrack Monoprint, 16 x 24”
I ask friends who have moved away to mail me their old makeup. I embed it artist-made algae bioplastics and submerge them in a tank of saltwater. I make videos of my hands mixing the combined materials in the tank. I then empty the tank out and project the video through the tank. The tank becomes surrounded by fragmented rainbow memories of what was once inside.
2021
The refracted rainbows from the tank shooting out the studio windows and into the trees outside at ChaShaMa North Residency in in Fall 2021. photographed by Eileen O’Kane Kornreich,
MASS MoCA alumni residency 2022
Watch the video here