One thing I’ve been wrestling with as I think about what I’ll be making during this residency is the ecological cost of making just about anything. As I think of different ideas and possibilities, I can’t help but wonder what their ecological impact will be, their embodied carbon emissions and material implications. And yet, given the site and context seems impossible not to make something, some kind of thing that will use materials and energy. As I contemplated this, I stumbled onto the possibility of carbon negative materials, materials that absorb more atmospheric carbon than is used in their extraction and/or production. I’m not sure these materials work at a hugely impactful scale in relation to climate change yet (seems there’s a lot of debate around this) but as a material possibility for an artwork, I’m drawn to trying to work with these carbon capturing materials. There’s something poetic in imagining that process happening within an artwork. I’ve started with some simple material tests. They are preliminary but seem promising!
