SALT
2022 -

"We will all be marine animals soon" by Rowan Lear on Map Mag, a response to I looked out and saw plumes of salty air on Map Mag

Works:
at first, and then (2023) view

I looked out and saw plumes of salty air (2022)
Salt cast sculptures, poetry pamphlet and performance

Across two sites, salt cast sculptures, suggestive of remnants from a speculative salted world. There was also a performative reading of an extract from a larger text, setting up the world I am inhabiting for my SALT residency.

Photos by Ellie McMaster

Background:
Starting from Joppa Salt Pans, a former site of fossil-fuel-powered salt production, the work explores connections between capitalism, rising sea levels, and over-salination. As glaciers melt and heat evaporates water, the seas have changed.

This commission involved testing speculative fictional environments in order to transform neoliberal apocalyptic narratives of doom and find hope in the dark.

Weaving narratives from this parallel reality, a salt world is being created. The work asks: how might bodies evolve to live with so much salt? And what could crystallised artefacts from this salty future look like? Emerging from this salt world are objects, film, poetry, and voice – each a tool for exploration, love, emergence, and identity.

Hanna Tuulikki has been providing dramaturgical support, and production support from Kathryn Cutler-Mackenzie. Originally commissioned for Art Walk Porty Festival.