Dreams 1 of Unknown Islands

Sasha Wortzel Sound installation, Cover: polymer PLA filament Big Cypress—Partnership 9.5 x 9.5 x 18 in. with Nature 2 3 7 min Year unknown Photo courtesy of Film still Pedro Wazzan Courtesy of the Everglades National Park Archives

Kristan Kennedy Let us begin with “seashell resonance,” the folk more things, and therefore it’s been harder for me myth or phenomenon claiming that when you place to articulate specificity. I am thinking about different a conch shell against your ear, you can hear the binaries around gender and around time—around ocean. In actuality, the undulating and rushing sounds people, plants, and animals being labeled as invasive are generated by ambient noise passing through versus native—about queer ecology and queer the shell’s spiral body into our spiral ears, creating communities and histories.”4 We spent some time The Museum an occlusion effect. It is, in this moment, that the talking about Hito Steyerl’s writings and her use of imagined sounds of waves and the very real blood the term “free fall,” where the artist/author describes of All Possible flowing through our curving veins start to sing the mixed-up-ness one feels in times of disorientation 1 to each other. We feel connected, transported— or when there is a lack of an orienting horizon in the transmuted! We are the ocean.2 distance. Steyerl expands on the potential space of Shells In their solo exhibition Dreams of Unknown unknowing when she writes, “Traditional modes Islands, Sasha Wortzel proposes similar plangency of seeing and feeling are shattered. Any sense of between the natural, political, corporeal, balance is disrupted. Perspectives are twisted and and metaphysical world(s) we inhabit. The artist multiplied. New types of visuality arise.”5 manipulates voices, recorded sunsets, snake At the center of Dreams of Unknown Islands is skins, shells, color, and light into new video, sound, a sound installation comprised of seven 3D-printed and sculptural works that act as stand-ins for polymer PLA filament sculptures designed by Wortzel. shorelines, boundaries, horizons, endings, and They look as if they have been thrust into real beginnings. The installation references cycles space from what is referred to as the “Museum of of life—be they natural, influenced, extracted, or, at All Possible Shells,” a sort of running computer- times, accelerated by human interference—and generated database of potential spiral shell forms creates an atmosphere conducive to contemplation, started by scientist David Raub in 1966. However, stillness, and questioning. There seems to be a these sculpted shells are intentionally weirded shifting positionality at play: the things we are with sharper edges, somewhere between something looking at are familiar but also skewed. The things real and the ghost image of the familiar. Their we are hearing are somewhat comforting but at morphoscopic structure is skewed; they are not times gut-wrenching. The tone and mood of the natural but rather represent and amplify difference room is seductive and peaceful, all the while asking, and change. Serving as speakers, they broadcast What is beneath? What has brought us to this place? a mashup of voices that act as a meditative rallying Are we here seeking rest and solace, or a reckoning? cry, their soundwaves flowing through the gallery Is this a place to breathe or to mourn—or both? and filling the space with an ethereal presence. The work contained in this show is the result The artist, in their consideration of how to process of long-term research, observation, and recording by the crushing weight of the current sociopolitical Wortzel of the South Florida coast. More recently, climate, turned to the Mourner’s Kaddish,6 a this surveying has run alongside navigating the day- thirteenth-century Aramaic prayer, as a primary to-day news of collective loss, ecological collapse, source. They reached out to members of their and political uprisings. Wortzel made this exhibition extended community of friends, activists, and artists while in residence at Oolite Arts during a global and asked them to send back readings of this sacred pandemic, a political regime change, and while living text. Wortzel then wove the audio files into a

2021 and working in various sites on land that is the soundscape inviting visitors to come together into ancestral and traditional territory of the Calusa, this collective process that moves grief towards Tequesta, Mayaimi, and the unceded ancestral healing. While the prayer makes no mention of homeland of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the death, it does call for peace, both personal and Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, and the universal. Wortzel remarked that the recordings took Independent Miccosukee-Seminole. Additionally, many iterative forms in which people took the prayer they are in the process of making a film, titled and made it their own. The invitation to participate River of Grass, which seeks to reimagine Marjory was a kind of offering for people to use during this Stoneman Douglas’s3 groundbreaking nonfiction time of pandemic, in whatever self-determined way book The Everglades: River of Grass (1947), while they wanted, in whatever way made sense. Wortzel exploring how Florida’s climate crisis is historically says of the recordings, “I feel like I am collecting rooted in the Everglades’ ongoing legacies of the specter or the energetic remains of these private colonization. In a recent conversation with the artist, performances and then bringing them together they admit that the exact meaning of this exhibition to create something collective. I hope that it links has yet to reveal itself but that they know it has up with visitors to the exhibition who can then something to do with this precarious time. They become a part of something evolving and morphing, mention that in their filmmaking they almost always so that we may not feel alone in this moment have a clear direction, plan, and intent but that right when gathering is forbidden or layered with risk.”7 now they are comfortable with this new work being In a lecture Wortzel shared with me by more abstract, open, and unmediated. They go on to Dr. Kim TallBear, Canada Research Chair (CRC) in say, “I think I am creating a wider container to hold Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience & Environment, Dreams of Unknown Dreams Islands Video installation 4 Color, silent 5

2021

the scholar talks about our obsession and reliance According to Russell, “glitch feminism” on forward movement and progress (she goes so suggests that “to exist in the in between is a core far as to call it “our religion”) and that the greatest component of survival.” Wortzel’s work sits in struggle right now is that people are grappling with this liminal space, quietly building a new world that the idea of “end times” or perhaps the end of does not eschew the messy stuff but, rather, an empire.8 For many months, Wortzel has been acknowledges it, traces it, records it, and plays it livestreaming a view of the sunset each night. back for us to absorb. Shouting out that a new world (sunrise), 1:01 min Looking out at the horizon, there seems to be no is possible if we would just pay attention. If we end in sight. We return to these spaces, the water’s would just tune in to the details and subtleties and edge, the sunrise and sunset, to feel in tune with the ask ourselves what kind of place we would like to world’s clock, forever ticking in the form of slow- rebuild. Whispering, shell-to-ear messages about shifting light and tides. These kinds of constants how we might partner with the natural world to do bring us comfort, but, as TallBear suggests, our so. As voices and sea levels rise, Wortzel marks obsession with the never-ending future, or the idea and distorts time, all the while calling out for some that things will and must always go on, acts as a semblance of peace, care for the land and each numbing drug allowing us to ignore the upsetting other and eventual liberation, imploring us to fight truth. We have become dominant, affecting the for survival. environment in catastrophic ways. We cannot expect things to always go on if we do not help correct the 1. “The Museum of All the sounds of our own imbalance we have brought to the world. Wortzel Possible Shells” is a longing and at times name coined by Richard mourning. See Stefan has placed three discreet videos on a constant loop Dawkins for what is Helmreich, “Seashell in the alcoves of the gallery. In one alcove, a sunset commonly known as the Sound: Echoing ocean, “shell morphospace.” vibrating air, brute and a sunrise face each other, both featuring This computer-generated blood,” Cabinet, no. 48 bobbing suns creeping along their natural path with space contains a set of (Winter 2012–13), http all possible outcomes ://cabinetmagazine.org equal parts anxiety and grace. And in the other of spiral shell formation /issues/48/helmreich.php. alcove, a dreamy, pink-hued sea turtle lays its eggs, from a given geometrical/ mathematical model. The 3. “You have to stand up carefully depositing them into the sand one by geometrical analysis for some things in this one. These real and yet digitized, colorized, edited, of coiled shells was world.” —Marjory Stoneman developed by David Raup Douglas, see https://www (sunset), 5:21 min and spliced realities—or glitches—are something in the 1960s and has .inspiringquotes.us perfectly imperfect to reflect upon. Here, the artist been continued by many /quotes/twd2_91tvzpPo. scientists, including shares with us their acute eye. Pay attention! We Dawkins. Raup continued 4. Conversation between are receiving downloads from the Anthropocene! to explore variations Kristan Kennedy and Sasha of spiral shells long Wortzel on October 31, There is hope. after his retirement, 2020 via Zoom. In Legacy Russell’s book Glitch Feminism: eventually moving into making computer-generated 5. Hito Steyerl, “In A Manifesto,9 the author writes that the word “glitch” artworks. See Richard Free Fall: A Thought finds its roots in the Yiddish glitsh“ ,” meaning Dawkins, Climbing Mount Experiment on Vertical Improbable (New York: Perspective,” e-flux slippery area. In the remaining works in the exhibition, Norton, 1996); Dr. M, Journal, no. 24 (April Wortzel plays with this in-between space. Her “Digital Seashells and 2011), https://www.e David Raup,” Deep Sea -flux.com/journal/24 sculpture, Sitting Shiva places two ubiquitous News (July 16, 2015), /67860/in-free-fall-a aluminum beach chairs side by side, empty and https://www.deepseanews -thought-experiment-on waiting for bodies. Wortzel is thinking here about .com/2015/07/digital -vertical-perspective/. -seashells-and-david the space between leisure and trauma, ecological -raup/; and Helen Scales, 6. Kaddish Prayer destruction and regeneration, in addition to the Spirals in Time: The illustrated by Ray Secret Life and Curious Himmelman Le Blanc absolute joy, respite, and pride in place experienced Afterlife of Seashells and published in Siddur by Indigenous peoples, Holocaust survivors, Cuban, (London: Bloomsbury Sigma, HaKohanot: A Hebrew 2015). Priestess Prayerbook Haitian, Mexican, Colombian, Venezuelan, Jamaican, by Jill Hammer and and other immigrants and peoples who have made 2. In Stefan Helmreich’s Taya Shere. article “Seashell Sound” Florida their home. The empty chairs also reference for Cabinet magazine, 7. Conversation between the void left after the great loss in Miami Beach’s the author uses poetic Kristan Kennedy and Sasha reasoning to talk about Wortzel on October 31, Queer community during the height of the AIDS “a model of subjectivity 2020 via Zoom. (sea turtle labor), 16:01 min epidemic, the ecological shock from dredging in in which people could imagine themselves sensing 8. Kim TallBear, order to create beaches, or from the damming of the themselves sensing,” and “A Sharpening of the Everglades in the name of real estate development, rolls around several Already Present: Settler theories as to why we hear Apocalypse 2020,” and the consequent toxic algae blooms and red the ocean when we press Speaker Series, tides. Layers and layers of meaning, interconnected a shell to our ears, Department of Political including the idea that Science, University of and interdependent histories, are woven together in we are hearing our own Alberta (October 9, the seats of these chairs. In a telling gesture, Wortzel blood rushing through our 2020), https://www veins. He also speaks to .youtube.com/watch?v has replaced the chairs’ traditional nylon webbing how this phenomenon starts =eO14od9mlTA. with skins from the Burmese python, a stunning to transmute the shell itself into a metaphor for 9. Legacy Russell, Glitch beast that is also considered a dangerous invasive the heart and even more to Feminism: A Manifesto species and wreaking a particular havoc in Florida. illustrate a connection to (New York: Verso, 2020). For those of us who those For shoreline the at live Invasive Burmese python Sound installation, skin, vegetable tanned polymer PLA filament hide, aluminum, plastic 6 9.5 x 9.5 x 18 in. 7 23 x 36 in. 7 min Photos courtesy of Photo courtesy of Juan Matos Pedro Wazzan

2021 2021 Sitting Shiva of Unknown Dreams Islands Video installation Video, color, sound Sound, color, mirrored acrylic, 15 min wood, muslin 8 9 243 x 144 in. 4:20 min Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon exhibition view: New Museum, New York Photo courtesy of Maris Hutchinson / EPW Studio 2017

2018

Performance, The Kitchen, New York, 60 min, Photo courtesy of Paula Court Lost Music in the BirthdayHappy Marsha! Video installation Color, sound, pressure treated timber, and MDF 10 11 120 x 85 in. 6:25 min 2019

Installation, Transitional Nature, Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum, Miami, Photo courtesy of Zachary Balber Somewhere Between Somewhere Video, color, sound 6 min 12 13

2018

Installation, On Fire —Vulnerable Footage, SALTS, Birsfelden

Interior view We Have Always Been Always Have We on Fire Video, color, sound 18 min 14 15 2019–20

Two-channel video installation, Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: Art 50 Years After Stonewall, Brooklyn Museum, New York, courtesy of Jonathan Dorado This is An Address Performance Kaddish Prayer published in Department of Reflection Siddur HaKohanot: A Hebrew Priestess Prayerbook, by 20 min 16 Jill Hammer and Taya Shere 17 Photo courtesy of Juan Matos

Monica Uszerowicz Kaddish Prayer 2019

יִתְגַדַל ׁוְיִתְקַדַש ׁשְמֵה רַבָּא yitgadal veyitkadash shemeh rabbah בְּעָלְמָא דִי בְרָא כִרְעו ּתֵה וְיַמְלִיך מַלְכו ּתֵיה be’almah di’vra chirutei veyamlich malchutei בְּחַיֵיכו ֹן ו ּבְיו ֹמֵיכו ֹן Like Horizons bechayeichon uveyomeichon ו ּבְחַיֵי דְכָל בֵית יִשְ ׂרָאֵל uvechayei dechol veit yisrael בַּעֲגָלָא ו ּבִזְמַן קָרִיב וְאִמְרו ּאָמֵן. .at Sunset: ba’agalah uvizman kariv ve’imru amen יְהֵא ׁשְמֵה רַבָּא מְבָרַך yehei shmei rabbah mevorach לְעָלַם ו ּלְעָלְמֵי עָלְמַיָא. .Sasha Wortzel’s le’alam ulalmei almaya

י ִתְבָּרַך ו ְי ִׁשְ ּתַבַּח yitbarach veyishtabach ּוְיִתְפָאַר וְיִתְרו ֹמַם וְיִתְנַשֵ ׂא Dreams of veyitpaar veyitroman veyitnasei וְיִתְהַדָר וְיִתְעַלֶה וְיִתְהַלָל, ,veyithadar veyitalei veyithalal ׁשְמֵה ׁדְקֻדְשָא בְּרִיך הו ּא Unknown Islands shemei dekudsha brich hu לְעֵלָא מִן כָּל בִּרְכָתָא ׁוְשִירָתָא le’eilah min kol birchata veshirata ּתֻ ׁשְבְּחָתָא ו ְנ ֶחֱמָתָא tushbechata venechemata דַאֲמִירָן בְּעָלְמָא. וְאִמְרו ּאָמֵן. .da’amiran be’alma ve’imru amen

יְהֵא ׁשְלָמָה רַבָּא מִן ׁשְמַיָא yehei shlamah rabbah min sh’maya וְחַיִים עׇלֵינו ּוְעַל כׇּל יִשְ ֹרָאֵל vechayyim aleinu ve’al kol yisrael וְאִמְרו ּאָמֵן. .ve’imru amen ‎ עו ֹשֶ ֹה ׁשָלו ֹם בִּמְרו ֹמְיהָ osah shalom bimromeha הִיא תַעֲשֶ ֹה ׁשָלו ֹם עָלֵינו ּוְעַל כָּל יִשְ ֹרָאֵל hi taaseh shalom aleinu ve’al kol yisreal וְעַל כָּל יו ֺ ׁשְבֵי תֵבֵל וְאִמְרו ּאָמֵן .ve’al kol yoshvei tevel ve’imru amen

May the great name, which includes all names that have been and will be, Be blessed in this world and in all worlds, Amen. May the One who makes peace in high places make peace for us and all the world. Amen.

Last spring, amidst the perpetual solitude of a “The ritual of watching the sunset did something citywide lockdown, Sasha Wortzel started taking for me,” she says. “I was thinking, What do I want long, meditative walks to the beach at sundown. to leave this world? What do I want to dismantle? As Miami sunsets are remarkable, granting a brief the sun set, I imagined that more.” There’s a passage quietude and drenching spectators in a gradient of by José Esteban Muñoz, from Cruising Utopia: The peach-pink-purple-green, though the term alone Then and There of Queer Futurity, in which Wortzel is illusive—by the time the sun seems to disappear finds loving solace, a quote that manifested itself below the horizon, it already has. Atmospheric into tangibility on the beach: “Queerness is not yet refraction allows us those extra, sanguine moments. here. Queerness is an ideality. Put another way, we “I was deeply sad,” says Wortzel. From her perch on are not yet queer, but we can feel it as the warm the sand, she began recording and live-streaming illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality.” the skies. She privately mourned the mass death of The sunset reminded her, she says, “to feel the the pandemic and the lives lost to police brutality warmth of the possibility of this moment. It’s been and other systemic cruelties, in recent public devastating. As the world comes undone and things instances and those never reported—“the people crumble, there’s power in asking what we want to we don’t see.” Parts of Miami Beach, where she sat, usher in next. To get there, first we have to mourn.” were once dredged from beneath the sea during After walking back home, Wortzel would the mechanization of Florida’s Everglades, a process participate in an online Kaddish session—a nightly that drained the land, established settler-led video call collectively organized by the Kaddish industries responsible for toxic runoff today, and Call Constellation, a rotating group of ritual leaders— ripped apart Indigenous communities—from the which allowed Jews and Gentiles alike to mourn Tequesta and Calusa to the Miccosukee and the pain of this moment and its uncountable the Seminole—while threatening their sovereignty. historical precedents. To speak of the Kaddish is Hurricane Season Hurricane 18 19 Acknowledgments

For Sasha Wortzel, the land we walk on is sacred, Andy Warhol Foundation and ongoing writer for exhibition. And my deep appreciation to all of the never to be taken for granted, and every place bears Hyperallergic, for contributing her poetic essay Oolite staff who contributed to this effort and bring the­ history of those who walked before us. The artist exploring the role of the Mourner’s Kaddish in their talents to the organization every day—along responds to sites with empathy, often responding Sasha’s work. with our Board, whose members generously embrace to traumatic events with a collaborative spirit for Oolite Arts supports the practices of Miami and champion the dynamic vision for Miami arts investigation. They invite collaboration on land artists and improves their visibility both within and that drives our work. acknowledgments; they appropriate archival footage, outside of Miami—as our founder, Ellie Schneiderman, I would like to give special thanks to Miko record sunsets and fleeting moments, and transport says, “in an effort to help artists help themselves.” McGinty and Rebecca Sylvers at Miko McGinty Inc., us to new islands where queerness is on the horizon It is our commitment to foster artists through for taking the lead on design. It is our hope that this and we ponder worlds above and below us. It is both exhibitions, public programs, short- and long-term publication will serve the artist as well as remain a a pleasure and a privilege to honor this prolific artist residencies, professional development, direct thoughtful, meaningful study after the exhibition. with their first solo exhibition­­­­­­ ­curated by Kristan funding, and publications. Kennedy, Visual Art Curator at the Portland Institute Contributions from numerous talented Dennis Scholl synecdochical—the name typically refers not to the queer ancestry—once profoundly affected by the for Contemporary Art in Portland, Oregon. We are individuals have made this exhibition and publication President and CEO hymn sung at Jewish prayer services but to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, “a whole generation of queer grateful to Kennedy for her evocative exploration of a success. Many thanks to Laura Marsh, Oolite Arts Oolite Arts Mourner’s Kaddish specifically. And for whom is the elders, a lineage I don’t get to know,” says Wortzel— sculpture and video as a place of reckoning. Director of Programming, for coordinating all facets January, 2021 Mourner’s Kaddish? The Aramaic prayer—recited and to its former thriving Jewish community. “My We are grateful to Monica Uszerowicz, writer of this publication. Thanks also to Amanda Bradley, monthly following the death of a loved one, and relatives and many Jewish people who survived and photographer who is a recent grantee of the Programs Manager, for organizing the details of the again on the anniversary of their passing (the genocide came here and first experienced leisure Yahrzeit)—never mentions death or loss, only life and rest, looking at the ocean. That is a form of and the entity who purportedly created it: “Glorified sitting shiva.” The chairs are for ghosts, for the many and celebrated, lauded and praised, acclaimed and bubbes who found refuge on the sand, who sang the honored, extolled and exalted ever be the name of hypnotic rhythms of the Kaddish for their people. thy Holy One,” says one translation. In keeping with When Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote of the tradition that a minyan (a group of 10 or more “dreams of unknown islands” in River of Grass, her people) is required for the Kaddish’s recitation, when seminal work on the Everglades published in 1947, Catalogue Contributors Jews partake in shiva—a secluded, weeklong she was describing a threat guised as potential, a Staff Board of Directors mourning ritual that begins immediately after the dream that proved poisonous: “There is no reason Dennis Scholl Kim Kovel Kristan Kennedy passing of a beloved—family and friends come to the to believe that the Indian world was not aware of a President and CEO Chair Essay and Curator mourner’s side to chant with them. Mirrors are great change impending before news of that first covered, chairs are replaced with stools; you weep, sail went hurrying among the Florida coastal Catalina Aguayo Eric Rodriguez Laura Marsh you eat, your body remains close to the ground. You villages . . . Because for a longer time Europe, across Executive Assistant Vice Chair Imprint Coordinator look only at your loved ones. You praise the creator the Atlantic . . . had been tossing with dreams John Ewing who holds your prayers and dreams and gifts the of unknown islands west beyond the blank peril of Anais Alvarez Reagan Pace Copy Editor breath to render them, newly, with your people. The Ocean-sea.” Douglas might be Wortzel’s cosmic Communications & Development Sr. Manager Secretary Kaddish is not really for the dead, but for the living. ancestor, a palpable specter in the room, but it is Danielle Bender Marie Elena Angulo Monica Uszerowicz “The Kaddish and shiva,” says Wortzel, “are about not those dreams for which Wortzel named her Cinematic Arts Manager Donnamarie Baptiste Essay acknowledging our loved ones’ ascensions from exhibition. It is, instead, islands of the future, where Alessandro Ferretti Pedro Wazzan this world. You can think about that in terms of the remains of settler-colonialism are dismantled Amanda Bradley Lilia Garcia Dreams of Unknown Islands Photographer people, but also the current world as we know it”— and purged. “What are the unknown ways of living Programs Manager Jane Goodman the land, the people we don’t know, past and present. and being together in the world?” Wortzel asks. “An Cherese Crockett Adler Guerrier Miko McGinty, Inc. Such grief yields space for new beginnings: at the island may not be somewhere else,” somewhere Exhibitions & Artist Relations Sr. Manager Thomas F. Knapp Design conclusion of shiva, the mourner, who has spent distant. “We’re on it now.” Jeff Krinsky seven days in the interior of their home, often returns Perhaps the dreamers guessed the Aaron Feinberg Lin Lougheed ImPress to their neighborhood with a ceremonial walk, to repercussions, that exploiting the land would Chief Financial Officer Maricarmen Martinez Printing feel the sun on their skin, the presence of their upheave its natural cycles, the lives of the people Deborah Slott Melissa Gabriel community, a gratitude for possibility. who understood them, the immanent knowledge Merle Weiss Sounds emanating from the shell forms that human beings and nature were never separate Art Classes Manager Artist Collaborators by Project composing the work Dreams of Unknown Islands bodies. As they sparked generations of human Rebecca Lee Exhibitions and programs at Oolite Arts are Tourmaline are in fact many Kaddishes—that is, recordings and environmental losses—deaths that reflect too Communications Coordinator made possible with the support of the Miami- Lost in the Music and Happy Birthday Marsha by Wortzel’s friends and family reciting the hymn plainly the racialized injustices governing us today, Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs during their own personal rituals. Stretched and the dreamers’ fantasies made real—their paltry Laura Marsh and the Cultural Affairs Council; the Miami-Dade Morgan Bassichis transmuted, the prayers divulge the hidden residue imaginations, keen to the myopic vision of profit, still Director of Programming County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; We’ve Always Been On Fire of the colonization that shaped Florida’s current could not have precluded such foresight. But they the Miami Beach Mayor and City Commissioners; landscape: Wortzel has crafted these soundscapes were unaware that the ancestors dreamed too, Juan Matos Archival Feedback and Misael Soto the State of Florida, Florida Department of State, to match recent data of toxic algae blooms, which that all of us kept dreaming, that it is these visions— Digital Content Producer and Coordinator Hurricane Season Division of Cultural Affairs; the Florida Arts are worsened by increased development and the far more expansive than theirs, as bright and as Esther Park Council; the National Endowment for the Arts; effluence of major sugar industries. This history sweeping as horizons at sunset—that bless us with Vice President of Programming the Lynn & Louis Wolfson II Family Foundation; Dreams of Unknown Islands Credits is intoned everywhere in the exhibition, even in memory and time to honor this land, return it to the Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation at the the chairs that comprise the work Sitting Shiva, those who cared for it, the descendants of those Michelle Lisa Polissaint Miami Foundation; the Albert & Jane Nahmad Denise Faxas upholstered in python skin by artist Elle Barbeito. who came first. “There are so many ghosts on this Education and Community Engagement Manager Family Foundation; Maurer Family Foundation; Sound Engineer Early settlers wrote of Florida’s landscape as they island,” says Wortzel. So many to grieve. With them, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. wrote of its people, perilous and unknowable, “an we build the island anew. Jessica Rivas Emile Milgrim For more information, visit OoliteArts.org. evil place looped about with giant snakes,” says Membership Development Manager Sound Designer Wortzel. There were no large snakes. The Everglades’ 924 Lincoln Road Dan Weitendorf Theo Ferrin current population of massive Burmese pythons, Miami, FL 33139 Facilities Manager 3D Designer an epic creature, is born solely from released pets— 305-674-8278 humans are good at fulfilling their own myths—and Jessica Bennett dangerous to endemic species like alligators. Today, Cinematography local collectives like the Swamp Apes, veterans who engage with the Everglades as part of wilderness Elle Barbeito therapy, are tasked with their removal. Plython Upholstery The chairs rhyme with the Kaddish in their The artist would like to acknowledge the lands and waters now known as the State of Florida, the With special thanks to Jacqueline Thompson invocation of homage. Here, it’s to Miami Beach’s ancestral homelands of the Calusa, Tequesta, and Mayaimi. Today the Greater Everglades are the and Diana Bazquez, Miami Beach Urban Studios unceded ancestral homeland cared for by the descendents of peoples that came to be known as at Florida International State University, for 3D the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, and the Independent fabrication; Houston Cypress for input on the land Miccosukee-Simanolee. acknowledgment; Elan/a June Margolis and the Kaddish Call; and all who contributed their voices to Dreams of Unknown Islands. Installation Seashells, sand Dimensions variable 20 Abrons Art Center, New York Photo courtesy of Max Marshall 2019 Eroded Moon