ANXIETY OF APPETITE, 2020

122″ x 60″ x 60″

Recovered and assembled ocean-made driftnet-balls, floats, feather, barnacles and bryozoans. Ghost nets roam the oceans, abandoned by the fishing industry and yet still fishing.  The title refers to human appetite and the anxiety produced as we surpass the limits of sustainability.

The factory fishing industry supplies venues like Red Lobster with enormous quantities of sea life for “all you can eat” seafood bars or menu items like “Ultimate Endless Shrimp Now Available All Day, Every Day for a Limited Time starting October 18, 2021.”

The commercial fishing industry creates a vast amount of marine plastic pollution, primarily from drift nets and purse-seine nets. Enormous nets get tangled and cut loose from fishing boats. Abandoned, they are called ‘ghost nets.’ These ghost nets float free and continue to hunt, roaming the sea and snaring fish, sharks, seals, seabirds and whales that die in the nets. The ocean, in an attempt to dispel them, tangles many different nets together and throws them up onto the shore.

The nets used in Anxiety of Appetite were retrieved from primarily the South Point of Hawaii’s Big Island between 2006- 2018, supplemented by smaller nets from Alaska, Costa Rica and the Gulf of Mexico.

EVENT: Art in Action: Navigating Identity, Culture, and Environmental Crisis Presented by Karen Comer Lowe

Date & Time: Friday, October 4, 2024 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM

Location: Atlanta Art Fair Theater  | Atlanta Art Fair  – More Info