This project was made of many casting of different shapes and sizes of shark dorsal fins and shark teeth. A short, looped video was projected onto an installation of the castings shaped into a shark's open jaws in the corner of the gallery room. The video was mapped into an oval and fit "inside" the shark's mouth; the video is an abstract expression of the life of a shark. At first, there is calm, peaceful blue food coloring dancing through the water. A few more drops are added, and then red food coloring comes in and takes over. This part becomes a little overkill, unfortunately. It takes on too much of a "JAWS" feel, and not enough about the shark and it's suffering and abuse. I honestly regret not doing something that geared it more in that direction.
I wanted to convey the mistreatment of sharks and their lives in many different ways, but I could have gone in other routes that would have better expressed those issues: sharks are often hunted for their dorsal fins. Hunters will remove the dorsal fin and then release the shark back into the ocean, leaving them to die. Sharks also have many, many teeth that wash up on beaches and shores. In my piece, the teeth represent our ignorance towards the mistreatment, where the single dorsal fins represent the fins that are removed so viciously. These animals are not always the predators we see often portray them as in movies. We need to realize that they are actually more often the victim.
I enjoyed the struggle this project presented me with. I have never worked with paper pulp, nor have I projected something onto my artwork before. It taught me a lot about the medium and about exploring more options. There are many things I wish I could have changed about my final presentation, but I'm happy with the amount that I learned from it!
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