I first conceived this work between February and March 2024 in response to news about the building of a huge sand dune to protect homes at Salisbury Beach (Massachusetts, USA) and it's almost immediate erosion (see here). The work explores the tension between human efforts to stave off environmental collapse and the unyielding forces of nature.
The work was then declared and titled as a ready-made on 25th January 2025. The piece is an evolving and dynamic collaboration between human and non-human performers, local and global forces: the weather; sea currents; waves; sand; beachfront homes and their inhabitants; contracted companies; teams working with trucks and various types of diggers to create artificial dunes; increasing and unrelenting coastal erosion; raising sea levels; various levels of government, as well as private endeavours; and climate collapse. The piece reimagines the concept of the ready-made in a contemporary context by taking Marcel Duchamp's idea and applying it, not to an existing object, but to a large-scale ongoing environmental event. In doing so, it transforms the event into a living artwork. By giving it a title and framing it as as a work of art, the work highlights the paradoxical Sisyphean cycles in the attempts to secure properties against worsening coastal erosion. |
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