bladderwrack
bladderwrack, seaweed, wire, buffalo horns, echium stalk, glazed ceramic, blackboard paint, pipe cleaners, dimensions variable, 2022. Solo exhibition, fish factory Arts Space, Penryn, Cornwall, UK.
notes 2020-22
[…]maybe it’s the fall (gravity), the tiny particles (seeds), the relation which both these things have with survival…a need of unease and ease, overlaid, elaborate mirror image, old chatter/new breath, alive yet dead – not duality but multiplicity, choked - layers, push - pull - poking the under-land…unspeakable notice of things - open yet closed - belly breathing / air pockets / air bubbles / floating and sinking[…]
between the two movements (the cross) - horizontal valence interrupting vertical energy […] storm damage seen on a beach offers a sort of stillness after the fall, with the potential to re-form, everything held yet able to move/reconfigure/mutate, labyrinth of meandering decorative patterns, fleshy breathing, membranes clumped together, pulsating vibration which disintegrates, repetition, process, precarity, fragility, skin full of air - attached in the flow, after the fall - a place of transition, waiting yet not knowing - looking for the place that connects above to below, what is inside and outside simultaneously, a[…] duality of opposites with no edges, a space in between thoughts and the body - light yet heavy - with gravity[…].
Seaweed exists between the land and the sea, continually oscillating under the push and pull of the tides, dancing to the moon’s tune. The sin of property it doth disdain.
Etymology of Bladderwrack:
bladder (n.) Old English blædre (West Saxon), bledre (Anglian) "(urinary) bladder," also "blister, pimple," from Proto-Germanic *blodram "something inflated" (source also of Old Norse blaðra, Old Saxon bladara, Old High German blattara, German Blatter, Dutch blaar), from PIE root *bhle- "to blow." Extended senses from early 13c. from animal bladders used for buoyancy, storage, etc.
bhel- (2) Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to blow, swell," "with derivatives referring to various round objects and to the notion of tumescent masculinity" [Watkins]. It forms all or part of: bale (n.) "large bundle or package of merchandise prepared for transportation;" baleen; ball (n.1) "round object, compact spherical body;" balloon; ballot; bawd; bold; bole; boll; bollocks; bollix; boulder; boulevard; bowl (n.) "round pot or cup;" bulk; bull (n.1) "bovine male animal;" bullock; bulwark; follicle; folly; fool; foosball; full (v.)"to tread or beat cloth to cleanse or thicken it;" ithyphallic; pall-mall; phallus. It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Greek phyllon "leaf," phallos "swollen penis;" Latin flos "flower," florere "to blossom, flourish," folium"leaf;" Old Prussian balsinis "cushion;" Old Norse belgr "bag, bellows;" Old English bolla "pot, cup, bowl;" Old Irish bolgaim "Iswell," blath "blossom, flower," bolach "pimple," bolg "bag;" Breton bolc'h "flax pod;" Serbian buljiti "to stare, be bug-eyed;" Serbo-Croatian blazina "pillow."
An extended form of the root, *bhelgh- "to swell," forms all or part of: bellows; belly; bilge;billow; bolster; budget; bulge; Excalibur; Firbolgs.
An extended form of the root, *bhleu- "to swell, well up, overflow," forms all or part of: affluent; bloat; confluence; effluent; effluvium; efflux; fluctuate; fluent; fluid; flume; fluor; fluorescence; fluoride; fluoro-; flush (v.1) "spurt, rush out suddenly, flow with force;" fluvial; flux; influence; influenza; influx; mellifluous; phloem; reflux; superfluous.
wrack (n.) late 14c., "wrecked ship, shipwreck," probably from Middle Dutch wrak "wreck," from Proto-Germanic *wrakaz-, from root *wreg- "to push, shove, drive" (see wreak). The root sense perhaps is "that which is cast ashore." Sense perhaps influenced by Old English wræc "misery, punishment," and wrecan "to punish, drive out" (source of modern wreak). The meaning "damage, disaster, destruction" (in wrack and ruin) is from c. 1400, from the Old English word, but conformed in spelling to this one. Sense of "seaweed, etc., cast up on shore" is recorded from 1510s, probably an alteration of wreck (n.) in this sense (mid-15c.). Wrack, wreck, rack and wretch were utterly tangled in spelling and somewhat in sense in Middle and early modern English.
wrack (v.) "to ruin or wreck" (originally of ships), 1560s, from earlier intransitive sense "to be shipwrecked" (late 15c.), from wrack (n.). Often confused in this sense since 16c. with rack (v.1) in the sense of "torture on the rack;" to wrack one's brains is thus erroneous. Related: Wracked; wracking.
wreak (v.) Old English wrecan "avenge," originally "to drive, drive out, punish" (class V strong verb; past tense wræc, past participle wrecen), from Proto-Germanic *wrekanan (source also of Old Saxon wrekan, Old Norse reka, Old Frisian wreka, Middle Dutch wreken "to drive, push, compel, pursue, throw," Old High German rehhan, German rächen "to avenge," Gothic wrikan "to persecute"), from PIE root *wreg- "to push, shove, drive, track down" (see urge (v.)). Meaning "inflict or take vengeance," with on, is recorded from late 15c.; that of "inflict or cause (damage or destruction)" is attested from 1817. Compare wrack (v.). Related: Wreaked; wreaking
Press Release, 2022.
