Southwest School of Art – Final Weekend

Apr 26 Sun
Exhibition Final Weekend
10am-5pm
"Crochet Coral Forest" and "Branched Anemone Garden" at the Southwest School of Art, San Antonio, Tx, 2015. Photo courtesy, Southwest School of Art.

“Crochet Coral Forest” and “Branched Anemone Garden” at the Southwest School of Art, San Antonio, Tx. Photo courtesy, Southwest School of Art.

 
This weekend is the last chance to see the gorgeous installation of the IFF’s Crochet Coral Forest  at San Antonio’s Southwest School of Art. Comprising six giant sculptures, the Coral Forest consists of three works in yarn, and three in plastic, metaphorically representing the dichotomy of the organic and the anthropogenic in our changing ocean environment. 
 
Each sculpture stands between 8 and 10 feet tall, each a sentinel crafted through thousands of hours of human labor and meticulously assembled from hundreds of crochet pieces. As living reefs are made up from thousands of heads of coral – these in turn the work of many coral polyps cooperating together – so works in the IFF’s Crochet Coral Reef project are complex ecologies fabricated over years of quiet, accumulative labor by communities of people. Where the yarn reefs represent the beauty of nature, forged through aeons, the plastic reefs reference the increasingly dominant powers of humanity, and the synthetic-saturated future we are ushering into being. Crafted from used plastic shopping bags, video tape, Saran wrap, bits of old hula hoop, and other plastic detritus, these glittering monsters are constructed by Margaret and Christine Wertheim, and incorporate pieces from the IFF’s Core Reef Contributors.
 
Accompanying the Coral Forest is the ever-playful Branched Anemone Garden, and an array of miniature coral Pod Worlds assembled from works by some of the IFF’s most skilled and imaginative Reefers.                                                                
   

Contributors to this exhibition:

Coral Forest sculptures crafted by Margaret and Christine Wertheim. And incorporating pieces by: Sarah Simons (CA), Anna Mayer (CA), Jemima Wyman (CA), Christina Simons (LA), Evelyn Hardin (TX), Helen Bernasconi (Australia), Marianne Midelburg (Australia), Helle Jorgensen (Australia), Barbara Wertheim (Australia), Ildiko Szabo (England), Heather McCarren (CA), Dr. Axt (VT), Anitra Menning (CA), Shari Porter (CA), Clare O’Callaghan (CA), Kathleen Greco (PA), Nadia Severns (NY), Arlene Mintzer (NY), Jill Schrier (NY), Pamela Stiles (NY), Siew Chu Kerk (NY), Irene Lundgaard (Ireland), Orla Breslin (Ireland), Una Morrison (Ireland), Sally Giles (IL), Pate Conaway (IL), David Orozco (CA), Ann Wertheim (Australia), Elizabeth Wertheim (Australia), Katherine Wertheim (Australia), Lucinda Ganderton (UK), Beverly Griffiths (UK), Jane Canby (AZ), Jennifer White (AZ), Sharon Menges (AZ), Tane Clark (AZ), Nancy Youros (AZ), Gina Cacciolo (CA), Chantal Horeau (CA), Ying Wong (CA), and unknown Chinese factory workers.

Coral Pod-Worlds curated by Margaret and Christine Wertheim, featuring pieces by: Sarah Simons (CA), Diana Simons (CA), Vonda N. McIntyre (WA), Sue Von Ohlsen (PA), Rebecca Peapples (MI), Mieko Fukuhara (Japan), Anita Bruce (UK), Gunta Jekabsone (Latvia), Jane Canby (AZ), Dagma Frinta (NY), and wire models by contributors to the Chicago Satellite Reef and the Irish Satellite Reef.