Aquatic Insurrection

Celia de Villiers

Dimensions variable (suspended aquatic creatures, W 36cm x H 18 x L 18cm - H 40cm x L 250cm x W 150cm) mutated marine plants and a dying ‘seabed’ Size variable 2 M+.

Resin casting, stainless steel, hand-made felt, hand-woven mohair, hand-dyed and commercial textiles, knitted wools and yarns, post-consumer waste. Hand and machine quilted and embroidered.

Rationale

This artwork comment on Hydropolitics - the precarious future availability of water and water resources.

Apart from humans globally, all aquatic life in rivers, streams and oceans has been adversely affected due to the concentrations of pollutants, such as heavy metals and chemicals. We can still buy bottled, purified water. For the animals that live in it, there is not this choice. 

Humans will fight for their territory, but aquatic life forms cannot fight back. Instead, they succumb. If we could endow them with extended life, what utopian qualities would we bestow on them? The creatures of Aquatic insurrection are armed with weapons to defend their waning territory; they are both tragic and amusing.

Each living creature has an underbelly soft as a fish. It is the ability to mutate in contaminated environments which will perpetuate their power to survive.