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| Response (Series) | 2007 & 2008 | Post-Consumed Plastic and Post-Consumed Paper | |||||||
| Response, 2007 (Installation at the Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina, SK) |
| This installation is influenced by the sustained environmental catastrophe occurring off the Southeastern U.S. coast since the early seventies. The State of Florida attempted to replace the coral reef that had been swept away due to the increase in dragnet fishing over the last century. They introduced a multitude of used rubber tires into the ecosystem, hoping that the local flora and fauna would interact with it in the same manner as the natural coral. Equal to the area of thirty-one football fields, the nylon and steel bands holding the tires together have broken loose over the last thirty years, washing the rubber tires out to sea, fracturing what’s left of the natural coral, and devastating the ecosystem there and abroad. This work is a response to the ‘deforestation’ of the ocean floors of which, despite popular belief, most of our oxygen derives. In this age of technological prowess, humanity has been inundated with the masses of convenient, yet inferior product, built from materials that last while the object itself fails. Through this representation of form, these sculptures provide material waste with a new existence as a moral and significant sculpture while the natural form simultaneously receives an transcendental representation through waste. Consequently, the viewer is encouraged to shape a new connection and eventually a positive relationship with these banal objects as well as other comparable materials throughout future encounters. These dynamic forms inherently predicate a radical perspective relevant to a consumer culture and a sustainable future. |
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| MMXLII, 2008 (Installation at the New Gallery, Calgary, AB) |
| This installation is influenced by the sustained environmental catastrophe occurring off the Southeastern U.S. coast since the early seventies. The State of Florida attempted to replace the coral reef that had been swept away due to the increase in dragnet fishing over the last century. They introduced a multitude of used rubber tires into the ecosystem, hoping that the local flora and fauna would interact with it in the same manner as the natural coral. Equal to the area of thirty-one football fields, the nylon and steel bands holding the tires together have broken loose over the last thirty years, washing the rubber tires out to sea, fracturing what’s left of the natural coral, and devastating the ecosystem there and abroad. This work is a response to the ‘deforestation’ of the ocean floors of which, despite popular belief, most of our oxygen derives. In this age of technological prowess, humanity has been inundated with the masses of convenient, yet inferior product, built from materials that last while the object itself fails. Through this representation of form, these sculptures provide material waste with a new existence as a moral and significant sculpture while the natural form simultaneously receives an transcendental representation through waste. Consequently, the viewer is encouraged to shape a new connection and eventually a positive relationship with these banal objects as well as other comparable materials throughout future encounters. These dynamic forms inherently predicate a radical perspective relevant to a consumer culture and a sustainable future. |
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© Griffith Aaron Baker