Recycling Ophelia, 1997

Clear large polypropylene sheets 4’ x 8’, circular 20” diameter, spray paint stencils, empty plastic recyclable bottles

Little Jonah pond, Cranbrook Educational Community, Bloomfield Hills, MI

“"Recycling Ophelia" borrows from Shakespeare's tragic figure Ophelia from "Hamlet". In this work, Ophelia's poetic death of drowning intersects the continual renewal of recyclables. The interplay between floating and sinking is another cycle of continuity. The water's surface tension and the relationship of densities, play a part in the polypropylene sheets floating. As those elements deplete, submerging begins. The recyclable plastic bottles are meant give the appearance of keeping the plastic sheets above the water, but in the end it sinks below the surface of water. On the topside white figures; and America but from below they are black, blocking out the light from above. In the end this forms the cycle of dissolution. For me, at this point; the subject and focus of identity has shifted to the interlocking of living and dying.”