MAKE / SHIFT
PLANETARY FIELD STATION GULF OF MAINE
MAKE / SHIFT: PLANETARY FIELD STATION, GULF OF MAINE is an evolving field-based project. It engages with the aesthetic and creative challenges of “making do” and “making it work” in the midst of rapid planetary change, especially along the Gulf of Maine.
The Gulf of Maine is one of the fastest changing environmental bodies in the world, warming at three times the rate of the world’s oceans. It is a great-basin-like depression with integrated geologic features. As an ecological region, it spans a transborder research site of 36,000 square miles with 7,500 miles of changing coastline. It allows us ample opportunities to encounter planetary forces of change: (unseasonable) season change, volatile weather, extreme tides, exposed traces of consequential geologic events that have unfolded over deep time.
We will share continuously updated results of field work conducted on rock formations, islands, and bays exposed to planetary forces of weather and anthropogenic conditions along the Gulf of Maine. Field work will consist of performing the simple act of making and sharing tea while exposed to planetary forces of wind, light, weather, tide, wave, geo-architecture, and the material conditions of contemporary life on Earth. Tea practices, spaces, and tools that poetically and practically adapt to the demands encountered at field sites along the Gulf of Maine will be offered for provocation, adaptation and collaboration as part of MAKE / SHIFT.
We will stage installations of our fieldwork and the prototypes of adaptations that we create (tools, objects, teaware, and tea practices) and invite publics to try out and contribute to the prototypes. “Open field station” hours will contextualize and localize the interactive prototypes further with guest speakers, demonstrations, film screenings, and collaborations with local artisans and “fitters” who are skilled in practices of makeshift.
