Borezo, Amy: New Ocean
NEW OCEAN considers the nature of freedom and wilderness using Death Valley as a site of investigation. The geology of this area is incredibly dynamic as the earth's crust thins and pulls apart, creating a continental rift where a new ocean will eventually form. The two ridges on either side of Death Valley were once joined, but have been separated over time. The artist visually binds the two back together, superimposing one on the other, as an attempt to metaphorically see the "whole" site with its complex history of human occupation as well.
The text for the book places excerpts from a travel narrative to the site written by a suffragist from 1922 (The White Heart of Mojave by Edna Brush Perkins) alongside an accounting of the effects of nearby nuclear testing on the indigenous population of Death Valley. By juxtaposing these two texts, the artist seeks to ask complex questions about how wilderness and freedom are defined and for whom.
The artist photographed the ridges while traveling along a large natural fault line in the valley. Diagrams of fault lines are printed with the text, showing the changing landscape over time.
eng., photopolymer plates on Zerkall, landscape fouldouts, lines and text in blue, red, grey, Hardcover, 98p, 10,2 x 6,3 inch, Ed. of NA 25, VA 15, num., sign., Western Massachusetts, 2019, Shelter Bookworks
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