From the moment you step inside the second-floor gallery of the New Bedford Whaling Museum hosting “Community BLOOMS: Katy Rodden Walker,” you are submerged into a mysterious underwater world. This gem of an exhibition is an experiential installation that immerses you in ocean depths where ethereal jellyfish float suspended in an imaginary sea.
The mystery is enhanced as a slowly transforming light projection of cobalt blue morphs into lime green. Gradually, the colors morph into an orange sunset washing over the gallery. An intriguing sense of bioluminescence occurs when the projected light is caught in and magnified by translucent plastic debris that has been transformed into floating sculptures of jellyfish.
These creatures, with their balloon-like bodies and trailing tentacles, are the focus of this motorized, gently moving installation. After a few moments, you will be transfixed by delicate moving shadows projected onto the walls by the colored lighting. These shadows are mesmerizing and give the sense that this ocean ecosystem continues beyond the four walls of this modest-sized gallery.
The site-specific installation is the brainchild of interdisciplinary artist Walker, who is deeply concerned about human-induced changes to our ocean’s ecosystem. “Plastic is everywhere,” she observed. And indeed, we know that humans produce over 400 million metric tons of plastic each year. “Where does it go?” she wondered, when her idea for this exhibition began to coalesce around the impact of microplastics in the ocean. Roughly eight million tons of plastics wind up in our oceans each year, although only 1% can be seen floating at the surface in visible form.