Installations
The Spiders From Mars Drop In on the Boom Boom Room
Broken umbrellas, acrylic on nylon, video, fabric, rope lights, folding chairs, audio pushbutton and mp3 player
At Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette, Louisiana
Paintings taken from news photos of manmade disasters over the past 50 years are suspended from broken umbrellas overhead. On the ground, other "spiders" are viewing a video comprised of scenes of the earth's beauty interspersed with news footage from the underwater camera trained on the leaking BP Deepwater Horizon oil well that played on our televisions for months on end. An enlarged, snakelike, illuminated boom -- the mechanism used unsuccessfully to prevent oil spills from infiltrating wetlands-- surrounds the group. A pushbutton on the wall allows visitors to hear Endangered Species by Esperanza Spalding and Wayne Shorter.