STATION 11. Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross
Erica Grimm in collaboration with Tracie Stewart (artist/arborist) and Sheinagh Anderson (soundscape specialist), Salt Water Skin Boats, 2018, willow, dogwood, fig, and cedar branches, cheesecloth, animal skin and gut, bathymetric ocean maps, layers of wax, earbuds, LED lights. Photo: SWHuget. ericagrimm.com
We are, metaphorically, skin boats, sustained by and inseparable from a dangerously changing global ocean. Salt Water Skin Boats proposes an analogy between our bodies and the vast ecology of the global ocean: between the life-sustaining, precariously balanced ocean chemistry and the chemistry of our own salt-water-filled bodies. The surfaces of the piece are at once flesh and ocean surface. They remind of cracks in ice as well as rivulets of light . . . or is it melting glacial water? Blood plasma, tears or amniotic fluid? Each vascular hull is covered with bathymetric ocean maps and scientific formulas calculating glacial melt, sea-level rise, ocean acidification and geochemical ocean tracers. The ambient soundscape, accessible by QR code and cell phone technology, functions as a living, breathing, sounding entity—the life of the ocean brought into the listener’s awareness. In the last two hundred years, human actions have changed the chemistry of the ocean. We are crucifying the earth.
Location: Waalse Kerk (Walloon Church), Walenpleintje 159. In 1578 the medieval church of the Brothers of Saint Paul was put at the disposal of French-speaking Protestant refugees from the Southern Netherlands and France and has thenceforth been called the Église Wallonne (Waalse Kerk or Walloon Church). The church is still being used for services and is also known as a charming concert platform with amazing acoustics and a great Müller organ. waalsekerk.nl
Soundscape: soundcloud.com/sheinaghanderson/coracles_webstreamingmix_may2018_anderson
text: Marleen Hengelaar