White Page Gallery, Minneapolis, MN. Photo: Vanessa Adams
White Page Gallery, Minneapolis, MN. Photo: Vanessa Adams
MANIFEST REVERSAL
Created for the Queer Ecology Hanky Project
White Page Gallery, Minneapolis, MN, October 2019
Irma Freeman Center, Pittsburgh, PA, February 2020
In September 2019 I went out on the Ohio River with two Marshall University biologists, accompanying them in their research on the freshwater mussel population.
The resulting print centers on the Ohio River floodplain, and its relationship to freshwater mussels. It is inspired by Cleo Woefle-Erskine’s writing on a trans theory of watershed embodiment that embraces “evolving expressions and categories of being.” Manifest Destiny’s fantasy of control is seen in the Army Corps of Engineers’ damming and dredging activities, here represented by regulated rectangular pools. The design is ultimately thinking toward a direction of "Manifest Reversal," with swamp dodder spreading out of the area of the pools back to its original flood plain. The mussels represented include Sheepnose, Pimpleback, Black Sandshell, White Heelsplitter, Pocketbook, Threeridge, and Fragile Papershell, and the extinct or extirpated Rough Pigtoe, Scaleshell, Spectaclecase, Snuffbox, and Tubercled Blossom.
Screenprint on cotton muslin
22”x22”
2019