Erica Grimm: Salt Water Skin Boats
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The Reach Gallery Museum Abbotsford 32388 Veterans Way, Abbotsford, British Columbia V2T 0B3
Erica L. Grimm in collaboration with Tracie Stewart and Sheinagh Anderson, "Lifeboat 3," 2017
dogwood branches, cheesecloth, bathymetric maps of the ocean, beeswax, binder twine, LED lights, bow to stern 13’10”. Photo by Sharon Huget....
We are metaphorically skin boats sustained by, and inseparable from, a dangerously changing global ocean. Salt Water Skin Boatsis an inter-arts project by visual artist Erica Grimm in collaboration with acclaimed sound artist Sheinagh Anderson and artist/arborist Tracie Stewart.
This large-scale installation and experimental soundscape draws analogies between human bodies and the global ocean. Sculptural forms based on ancient water-going vessels and constructed from willow, dogwood, fig, and cedar branches, cheesecloth, animal skin and gut, bathymetric maps of oceans, and layers of wax are suspended in a dimly-lit gallery and accompanied by a haunting soundscape. An embodied experience, the exhibition calls attention to the life-sustaining connections between the precariously balanced chemistry of the ocean and the human body.