Antediluvian Sympoiesis is an installation created for the group exhibit Women and Other Wild Creatures: Matrilineal Tales at Sapar Contemporary Gallery in New York City, curated by Nina Levent from June 4 – August 26, 2022.

INSTALLATION ELEMENTS:

• 1 video
• 1 hand-painted text on the wall
• 2 sketchbooks
• 3 Paintings on/in Limulus Polyphemus shells + 1 photograph

BACKGROUND:

When curator and gallery owner Nina Levent was planning this exhibition in the Spring of 2022, the brutal war in Ukraine had just started. Nina is from Ukraine and her family still lives there. She indicated that the exhibition should have a healing perspective. As my family was going through health issues during the winter, more than ever I found comfort and purpose in deepening connections with other-than-human voices and included them in my work more deliberately. So when discussing potential ideas for the show Limulus Polyphemus (horseshoe crabs) came up as it was their spawning season. Their lifecycle is not only interlocked with the migration of shore birds and their survival, but also with us humans! We have deepened on the Limulus for the past 30 years to make all injectable drugs – i.e. any vaccine, I.V., etc., save and free of bacterical endotoxins. I am still learning about their antediluvian lifecycle; we trace their development from the Paleozoic Era, 450 million years ago, birds around 30 million years, and fathom that: Homo Sapiens is not even one million years old!

Antediluvian Sympoiesis gathers all these elements and initiates a response-ability to work toward Sympoiesis – a “making with” as sustainable and healing practice.

Below are the elements of the installation; a more detailed PDF is available here.

1 – VIDEO:

On May 21 2022, during Limulus Polyphemus spawning season & like every year I went to Plumb beach — still in Brooklyn & only 20 minutes away from where I live & felt the urge to document myself lying among the multi-millennial arthropods. I brought a couple of shells that I had previously collected & are in the installation. Since Limulus Polyphemus has 10 eyes I thought it made sense to place my iPhone pro inside in one of beautiful female shell — shell now inscribed with lines from my poem: “reliable emergence tidal connection.” Additional footage was taken by Pierre Joris who was assisting me. The shoot was very instinctual, & driven by the desire for a close physical association with the elements. I truly felt the symbiosis of depth, strength, truth… all words with the suffix -th (2) pertaining to the root of the word health & I felt spawned!

2 – TEXT PAINTED ON THE WALL:

Sympoiesis or making-with is an asana that requires constant practice; this poem is a memento & I often perform it during my live Karstic-actions. Painting it on the wall emulates Limulus Polyphemus’ tracks on the sand.

3 – SKETCHBOOKS:

I draw/write/mark & make notes about what I see, read, listen to, question, study and/or want to remember. Shown in Antediluvian Sympoiesis is my latest finished carnet, a double sided leporello Connection en Mille-Feuille that was just published by Red Fox Press. It was my daily companion from November 21, 2021 to February 13, 2022.

4 – PAINTINGS & PHOTOGRAPH: