"You and I have thus become the arbiters of information, passing on the holy texts and images that inform this new epoch, the hydro-cene."
"I pass unto you..." was a collaborative exhibition between myself and Angela Saenz. Together we considered the flooding of a future world. Saenz's work includes lithographs, sculpture and a video installation. I explored the beginning of fiction through prints cushioned between plexi glass. Read a review of the show here.
Mostly it was trash, but there was a book that caught my eye. It was older, with a faded pink cover and yellowed pages. Written on the front in bold black letters, “Tsunami Stones.” Beneath the title was a picture of twelve, polished egg-shaped stones placed within a circle. I read a small passage from the book and came to understand: tsunami stones were a mythology, although some believed them to be a reality. They were stones that, if found, would save a land from being engulfed by the inevitable and fatal waves of the coming tsunamis. Legend has it, an ancient city was once saved with the magic of tsunami stones; the city now lies underwater, completely safe.”
She recalls a poignant memory while she pulls sorrow out from your eager mouth. Someone is resting their head on her lap. They are sitting within a synthetic tent - beautifully crafted. The tent sits within a cave known as “the crab’s domain.” It is night and the sea is roaring. She pulls out thread from an egg sized sack, viscous like a spider’s web. She stretches the thread until it runs a couple feet long and then starts knitting it with thin silvery needles about the length of her own fingers. The person with their head on her lap stares up through the knitting hands towards the synthetic lantern that rocks back and forth.
“We need a portal. And we need it fast.” The words were being said but they did not reach her ears. Here in the Blue Castle everything seemed less dire. She knew of the great sorrow - had felt it on her own - but she also knew that portals came in their own time. “Rest for a night. Eat fruit from the gardens and fish from the sea. Walk out to the dunes and cut your fingers on salt.”