Flotsam & Jetsam: Shoreline Studies of Time & Material

This paper outlines the formation of an artistic methodology and an emerging thesis project. Walking and collecting along the shoreline serve as a conduit for creating and point towards a broader engagement with notions of time and temporality. The shoreline represents a liminal space from which to witness the effects of the Anthropocene and to notice changes large and small. The objects I forage serve as generative starting points for creation. I ask how these objects, both organic and inorganic, contain multiple temporalities, and how can I exert these qualities through methods of assemblage, installation and mimicry? The timescales I encounter in my expanding collection range from the geological to the distinctly human, from deep time to fleeting moments of capitalist consumption. I ask what knowledge can be gained from studying the matter we discard through an artistic lens, and how might it point us toward an alternative future? My work pays attention to the remnants and traces of human and nonhuman activity, to patterns of growth and decay, to interaction between organic and inorganic entities, and to the traces left behind.