Included in the show is Christine Wertheim and Margaret Wertheim’s The Midden, an artwork that’s literally rubbish. The Midden is 4 years worth of the Wertheim sister’s domestic plastic trash they kept and stored from 4 years – from Jan 2007 to April 2011. Every bottle, bag, container, wrapping and doo-dad they used in their home is preserved here, thus the piece serves as a real-time historical archive of humanity’s enslavement to plastic and the endless ways we invent to multiply these compounds in our lives. Now, a decade later, most of the items in this cache are routinely larger, and would – if collected today – constitute a great deal more waste.

Displayed here as a ceiling of rubbish hovering above the audience’s heads, visitors view the work as if diving under the ocean looking up at a swirling mass of garbage. In total 440 pounds, this is far less than the amount of plastic routinely thrown away by US citizens; it’s about half what the average American generates in the same amount of time. Multicolored lighting illuminates the netted haul of discards, magnifying its toxicity, making it seem to pulse and resonate like a monstrous synthetic organism. Its alive!

Under the trash is a series of vitrined Pod Worlds displaying finely wrought crocheted coral seascapes like a cluster of aquariums. Curated and largely crocheted by the Wertheims, these installations also include individual pieces by beloved Reef contributors Evelyn Hardin, Orla Breslin, and Una Morrison, along with items from the Baden-Baden Satellite Reef crafters.

FAULT LINES Participating Artists: John Akomfrah, Willie Cole, Olafur Eliasson, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Susie Ganch, Allison Janae Hamilton, Hugh Hayden, Hugo McCloud, Richard Mosse, Jean Shin, Jennifer Steinkamp, Kirsten Stolle, Christine Wertheim, and Margaret Wertheim.

Exhibition curated by Linda Dougherty.

For more about The Midden project see here.