For the past few years, I have been wanting to create an undersea exhibition. My vision has been of a walk through installation where the viewer will be immersed in a fiber art marine environment. The Institute for Figuring’s Crochet Coral Reef Project has been hugely inspirational for me and I definitely see the installation as moving from healthy reefs to bleached reefs and parts of the exhibition should be made out of plastics and perhaps recovered and recycled marine materials. I started creating larger corals two or three years ago with this project in mind and quickly realized that one person doing it alone would never finish before they died of old age.
The difference between my vision and what is created through the satellite crochet coral reefs around the world is the immersive experience of actually being in the ocean and seeing not only the coral reefs but also the critters living among the coral reefs. Thankfully, I went to a fiber art retreat a few weeks ago and met someone with similar inclinations and connections in the local Oregon fiber art scene.
As we begin to formulate our plan for a location for this installation and the myriad of details that come along with getting the word out and encouraging community participation, all I can say at this time is WATCH THIS SPACE!