The Quiet Work of Erosion
In The Quiet Work of Erosion, the ceramic forms become a slow-performance of returning to earth. Participants will build them with care—shaping, smoothing, coaxing volume out of clay, then allowing them to dry in the sun. Once dried, the solid objects s will be placed in a shallow pool of water and allowed to dissolve back into mud, thus emulating the erosion of “landscape” and “bodyscape.”
Each participant will record this process using their camera. They may stay and watch the erosion or come back to it in intervals. The recordings will be shared on instagram #QuietWorkErosion and The Blog: The Quiet Work of Erosion. This process makes erosion visible on an intimate scale. It echoes the desert roads dissolving at the edges, rocks dusting down over time, and bodies quietly altered by illness and age. The sun that hardens the clay also dries and fractures it; the water that briefly restores plasticity also washes detail away. Instead of trying to preserve the ceramic as a permanent artifact, you allow it to cycle: object to sediment, form to formlessness.
Project Proposal for DESERT BIENNIAL PROJECT 2027: FLUX (Note: this is a community based project and requires participation from visitors and other artists in attendance)
Project Title: The Quiet Work of Erosion
Project Materials: B-5 clay (or recycled clay), clear shallow plastic trays for water, participants, recording devices
Estimated size: Varies depending on participants. The actual trays holding water are 8 inches by 1 inch deep. The individual forms made by participants - each participant will be given 1-2lbs of clay to form. The forms will be placed in the water on the playa ground. Participants can stay and record the erosion or come visit in intervals. The importance of this is the community flux.
The Quiet Work of Erosion embodies flux by turning change itself into the artwork’s medium. Flux is present in at least four intertwined ways:
Material flux (form ⇄ formlessness)
Clay moves from malleable body to sun‑dried “object,” then back into mud in the shallow pool.
Rather than resisting this cycle, the project centers it, showing flux as a continuous loop: object → sediment → potential object again.
Environmental flux (sun, water, desert)
The same forces that shape Nevada’s desert—sun, intermittent water, wind—become active collaborators.
The piece mirrors eroding roads, crumbling edges, and dusting rocks, tying each dissolving form to larger ecological change in a fragile environment.
Bodily and identity flux (landscape ⇄ bodyscape)
As the clay forms soften, crack, and collapse, they echo the quiet, often invisible erosion of bodies through illness, aging, and fatigue.
Calling them both “landscape” and “bodyscape” collapses the boundary between self and place, suggesting that who we are is also in flux with the environments we inhabit.
Participatory and temporal flux (time, attention, documentation)
Participants decide whether to stay and watch the erosion or return in intervals, experiencing flux as slow, almost imperceptible change or as sudden difference between visits.
The act of recording and posting (#QuietWorkErosion, blog) adds another layer of movement: the work shifts from physical clay to digital image to shared narrative, transforming over platforms and audiences.
Altogether, the project responds directly to the DESERT BIENNIAL PROJECT 2027 theme by treating flux as the core structure of the work—materials, bodies, environments, and stories all caught in a state of ongoing, quiet transformation.
