Contextual Statement

Water’s Edge | 2023

Algae-based bioplastic, water, glass

Within my practice, I work with algae-based bioplastics to raise ideas around the way life on Earth is created and sustained, and about interconnectedness. Put simply, bioplastic is made from water, glass and aquatic algae, and I draw on the behavioural characteristics of these materials within my studio work. For example, algae produces oxygen through photosynthesis and is responsible for creating the atmosphere on Earth from which plants and animals could evolve. Glass formed naturally in sand from lightning strikes is materially connected to the cellular compounds such as DNA. Water is life-sustaining because of the way it functions as a solvent, enabling chemical reactions in animals, plants and microbes. In my practice, water is also associated with interconnectedness, as it flows through all bodies, both geological and biological. While the bioplastic forms a tangible yet ephemeral skin, there is also an idea of immortality created from those ever-enduring particles and interconnectedness resulting from the cyclic flow. 

In this work Water’s Edge, I explore the boundaries between bodies of water and the continuous exchange that occurs over time through cycles of evaporation, transpiration and respiration – that naturally create an interconnectedness between living and geographical entities. Algae-based bioplastic responds to air, moisture, atmospheric changes – breathing in and out, and becoming a participant in the exchange of water molecules between the margins that divide bodies of water. The biomorphic forms are skins that support this process and become a kelp-like divide like that found on the shoreline of geographical bodies of water; beaches, lakes, and rivers. A zone of both separation and connection between land and water, overlapping and influencing the natural state of each other, and crossing over into one another.