Mary Coss: Groundswell
Recommended
This event is in the past
March 1–April 6, Fridays–Saturdays, 12–5 pm, ended Apr 6, 2019
Method Gallery
Pioneer Square (Seattle)
Free
Mary Coss spent two years working with Roger Fuller, a spatial ecologist at Western Washington University, examining the dangerously increased salinity levels encroaching on local estuaries. Estuaries are where river, land, and ocean meet and mix—for instance, in the Skagit Valley, one of our fresh-water resources. On the left side of the gallery is an installation called Silent Salinity, a ghost meadow (as the artist calls it) made of 300 pieces of hand-tied wire sedge, a grass-like plant, dipped in abaca pulp, a type of fiber. The ghost meadow in the gallery consists of crusted layers of salt, out of which stick salt-casted things like kelp, barnacles, and other organic matter. The other day in the gallery, Coss was in the middle of installing a giant wave of tulle overhead. It's meant to represent Mother Nature fighting back. "Ultimately, the water will be here," Coss said, referring to her wave specifically and the future of this imperiled planet more generally. "We have a window where we have the opportunity to turn things around or not. And if we don't, we probably won't be here, but the water will."
by Jas Keimig