SITE: Nantucket / MA

 Nantucket / MA

Oika Research: Nantucket Harbor & pH

Cause and Affection

The framed artwork and visual data above is my visual contribution to Oika Research: Nantucket Harbor & pH, an Oika Research project in collaboration with ecologist Dr. Rich Blundell and Nantucket Harbor in the Summer and Fall of 2024.

About the Project

In 2024, ecologist Dr. Rich Blundell and artist Rita Leduc embarked on Oika: Nantucket Eelgrass & pH (Cause and Affection), a scientific and creative research project on ocean acidification and its impacts on eelgrass in Nantucket Harbor. That summer, as Maria Mitchell Association’s visiting scientist-in-residence, Blundell facilitated the deployment of two sensors: a state-of-the-art oceanographic buoy that continuously measures pH, nutrient levels, dissolved oxygen, temperature, salinity and chlorophyll in the water column, and an artist (Rita Leduc) into the water. Leduc immersed herself in the eelgrass ecosystem to collect visual data that reflected the many sensations of relationality she felt at different levels from the sea floor. The resulting artwork expresses a lived-experience of relationality between Leduc and Nantucket Harbor’s eelgrass ecosystem. 

As an Oika Research project, Nantucket Eelgrass & pH (Cause and Affection) investigates the ecological intelligence of nature and then links local culture and ecology systemically to local economies. To accomplish this, the long-term value of the artwork is algorithmically linked to the pH as measured in real time by the buoy. By intertwining scientific data with artistic data, the project communicates the continuity between the health of the harbor and the health of our human condition. 

In 2025, the project was awarded a grant from the Great Harbor Yacht Club Foundation to continue research into 2025.

For more project information and documentation, visit the Oika Research: Nantucket Eelgrass & pH webpage here.

Oika Expedition Nantucket @ Maria Mitchell Association

Spring + Summer, 2023

The artwork above is my visual contribution to Oika Expedition Nantucket, an Oika exhibition in collaboration with Maria Mitchell Association on Nantucket, MA from June 15-July 12 2023. The exhibition features a cohort of Oika creatives: Dr. Rich Blundell, Dena Haden, Dakota Clearwater Lacroix, and Robert Peters.

About the Artwork

My visual inquiry on Nantucket explores the changes in character of the color grey as it traverses from the Grey Lady’s port and downtown area to the forests and moors. It is an investigation into what can be unearthed in an ecosystem’s “grey areas,” interrogating the very existence of boundaries until they break character and dissolve. The work includes:

A series of 10, 4”x4” collages made from gray-toned scraps from photographs, “visual data” collected in-situ, and shades of Nantucket-approved colors all cut in shapes sourced from the architecture and nature of Nantucket. Together, the 10 collages mimic a 10-step value scale that depicts the culture-to-nature continuity from Main Street Nantucket to the Enchanted Forest.

An 18”x24” drawing that traverses the same path as the 10-step collages but through a slow, meditative, graphite-gray analysis.

A 7.5”x9.5” collage; a combination of the 10-step collages and source material for the drawing.

Four site-specific Field Marks, collages created from “visual data” collected from looking in two, 180-degree vantage points at four chosen sites (33 Washington, MMA Aquarium, Vestal St. Observatory, Loines Observatory). The collages are sandwiched in acrylic and installed outside at each origin site. These pieces encourage viewers to gaze through from either side of the acrylic portal, converging the two perspectives and inviting reflection on continuity, spatially and otherwise.

When acquainting myself with a place, it is important that I utilize a variety of processes; each material and method provides an alternative means of understanding. By diversifying my engagement with an environment, I can absorb and participate from a myriad of perspectives. The effect of this is not dissimilar to the convergence of vantage points in the Field Marks or the amplification of continuity offered by the "grey" artworks: the multiplicity of approaches makes me more porous, “smoothing out” my own boundary between self and world.

For more about the exhibition, visit the Oika Art: Nantucket webpage here.

Previous: Ecology Extended / HBEF

Next: Bay Ridge / BKLYN