extinct mussel resurrection spell

May-August 2024, Park Towne Place, Philadelphia

Salt, flour, neon pink mason line, 60” x 60” x 96” (NFS)

Extinct Mussel Resurrection Spell is an installation of 47 individual strands of 51 salt dough beads, each strung on armature wire and neon pink mason line. Strands are hung from individual hooks at 4-inch increments, creating a square semi-transparent envelope of space. The spell is enacted each time a visitor steps through the 24-inch opening to the space. There is a childlike naivety to the idea that one could bring an animal back from extinction with flour, water, and salt. This spell will not work. Instead, this piece will deteriorate over the course of the exhibition as beads settle and crack.

The strands are movable, like a beaded curtain. They swing. Each weighs approximately 30 lbs. and is comprised of 24 inches of mason line, and 60 inches of salt dough beads, with 12 inches of space to the floor.

This piece is part of a transdisciplinary collaborative project, Delisted 2023. For Delisted, artists and writers were asked to create in relationship with thirty-two plant and animal species that, presumably extinct, were removed under the United States Endangered Species Act of 1966.

I was paired with the Yellow Blossom Pearly Mussel.

While participating in Delisted, I was also writing my second book of poetry, Sky Burial. The mussel appears in several poems in the manuscript. My practice flips between visual and written art forms. As soon as I finished writing Sky Burial, I started thinking of the mussel in a physical way. I began researching mussel farms—thick ropes of mussels hung in rows that look like underwater forests. I learned that a trick for home mussel farming is to lay mussel larvae called glochidia on a counter and sprinkle salt on them. If a glochidia reaches for the salt, it is considered viable for mussel rope or host fish.

Materials are extremely important in my artmaking, especially my beadwork. Salt holds many connotations beyond nutrition. Salt for luck. Salt as antiseptic. Salt to preserve. Salt as protection—or in this case, salt as resurrection spell.

Extinct Mussel Resurrection Spell is a room made from 2,397 salt dough beads—mixed and baked using a childhood recipe for making holiday ornaments. The space itself is contemplative. The beads, perhaps mistaken for sea-tumbled stones, sway in subdued hues of pink and beige. In contrast, the ceiling of the temple is a neon string net.

Delisted 2023 asks “How do we attend to the more than human others when we encounter them at a point beyond precarity? How do we find beauty and joy?” For me, the answer lies in the repetitive and ritualistic nature of this kind of artmaking.   

Exhibition in partnership with InLiquid.