Absorb, Adapt – Heather Komus

Absorb, Adapt is an installation that began during a residency in Newfoundland, where I found myself collecting plastic and other marine detritus that washed up on shore. I was struck by the tangled chaos of organic and industrial objects and also the way plastic was inevitably absorbed into bodies and ecosystems. In Miami Beach I continued collecting marine detritus and incorporating it together with objects from Newfoundland into handmade paper pieces. Looking at marine ecosystems, our ideas of humanism, progress and linear time are challenged as we see creatures that have barely changed in millions of years. Manitoba has been shaped by the millions of years it was covered by water and this absence is felt when we discover ancient marine fossils. Absorb, Adapt references plastic pollution and the acidification of the ocean, which is basically turning back time to create an environment more beneficial to older, simpler organisms. My work contrasts permanence and impermanence, suggesting timelessness or a nonlinear view of time.