entanglement

Entanglement is an indoor installation created for Boxo 10x10, a survey exhibition of work by artists who have participated in the BoxoProjects Artist Residency program in Joshua Tree, CA, over the course of its first 10 years in operation.

The work refers to violent weather patterns, resilient actors in nature, human-built water and power systems, and complex dichotomies exhibited in the causes and effects of climate change. Composed of layers of delicate paper and vellum which curl, ripple and transform according to moisture levels in the atmosphere, it is inspired by human vulnerability in the face of questions surrounding water rights and resource scarcity in the Southern California desert communities where BoxoProjects is situated.

At its center is a graphite drawing of a mesquite tree, native to American deserts, where it has been revered for millennia as a food and timber source requiring very little water to survive. But in parts of Africa, where they were introduced to reverse desertification and ease hunger, mesquites have spread out of control, draining water tables with long roots, and causing diabetes in animals due to the abundant sugar contained in their pods. Worked into the tree’s branches are references to the Sacramento Delta, which supplies arid Southern California with much of its needed water by way of the California Aqueduct, a 400-mile-long concrete, state-built channel snaking through the San Joaquin Valley, from Stockton to Los Angeles and beyond. Cut into the tree’s trunk is a cross-sectional schematic of a Hitachi-manufactured centrifugal pump, one of 14 installed at the Edmonston Pumping Plant to force water over the Tehachapi Mountains into LA. Each pump is 60 feet tall, equipped with an 80,000-horsepower motor, and capable of sucking enough water every six seconds to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool; a year of water delivery requires roughly the same amount of power consumed by every household in the city of Los Angeles. And peppered throughout the piece are clusters of pastel-colored vellum dots made to resemble the radar imagery of southwestern monsoons that flash flood the desert without warning every summer. The storms provide water when it’s needed most – but their strength and velocity render them capable of destroying homes and claiming lives.

To accompany “Entanglement”, I made 15 drawings based on satellite views overlooking different sections of the California Water Project. 10 x 8” each, with water soluble graphite and colored pencil on paper, they are available for purchase. Contact me for more information.