Eli Nixon’s forever incomplete public sculpture project — BLOODTIDE — which is currently on view throughout PPL’s Atrium staircase transformed recyclables into a menagerie of organisms in an effort to grok (and make more visible) the vastness of the horseshoe crab’s time on Earth as well as the relative recentness of human existence. From April 2022 – January 2023, Eli worked with participants (ages 9 weeks to 83 years) to sculpt and paper mache dozens of lifeforms, through an asynchronous yet collaborative process, in which each organism was created by multiple people. Both the process and the product attempt to decentralize colonized notions of time and ownership, upset linearity, revel in impossibility, and reckon with our enmeshment with the more-than-human world. This project is part of activating Eli’s illustrated proposal for a new holiday in homage to horseshoe crabs, Bloodtide, which is available for check-out at the Library.
The installation is viewable every day PPL is open! Learn more about the project and events here and here.