All that is solid melts into air

SiTE:LAB
Booth C17
UNTITLED MIAMI BEACH
NOV 30 – Dec 4, 2016

All that is solid melts into air is an installation that connects this temporary exhibition space to the coastal geography in which it is located, its geologic history and our tenuous place within it.  Over the course of the fair, the installation will function as an active experiment, a site of material transformation as salt water collected from the ocean continues to crystallize onto glass vessels and panels.  At the same time, ultrasonic humidifiers will transform sea water into fog, a mineral vapor that will collect on the glass panels to reveal a fine powder of ancient dust.  Other elements in the installation include prehistoric sharks fossils cast in sand collected from the beach, photograms made from salt formations, and illuminated crystalized spheres which take on the appearance of a planetary body. All that is solid melts into air is a collision of processes, materials and forms spanning deep geologic time and continuing to the present moment.

The title of this work is from Marx’s Communist Manifesto, a line in which he describes the fundamental instability of social conditions for workers as a result of a constantly changing means of production. While the recent election would suggest that this phrase continues to describe the social effects of neoliberal policies, we have reached a point where these words are no longer merely a poetic statement of social conditions, but are now a prophetic description of the material conditions of our changing planet.