one from wisconsin

July

This site-specific installation is inspired by the transitional period the MWA finds itself in. To Carol, she views it through the analogy of an ark. She writes: “Defined as a chest, coffer, or hutch, we are familiar with Noah's Ark and the Ark of the Covenant. One might also think of a museum as a kind of ark—a repository for preserving things. As the Museum of Wisconsin Art prepares to rebuild, the museum-as-repository-ark will even require its own temporary-floating-ark.

Every day in the news we are confronted with multiple reports of loss and attempts at preservation—e.g., the mysterious disappearance of frogs around the globe and the "Doomsday" Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. We might ask what a contemporary ark would be like. Noah was directed to save everything, but failing that, how would we know what to save? Even well-intentioned choices have unintended consequences—the introduction of European rabbits into Australia or kudzu into the southeastern U.S., for example. Similarly, art museums encourage us to consider what we value and what is worth saving, and what the implications of our choices might be.”

In answer to these musings, Carol’s Arca Arcana proposes a clearly fallible ark with a relatively inscrutable population, mirroring the uncertainty of our world.