This work began from reading adrienne maree brown’s book Emergent Strategy, taking emergence as a point of departure—a simple action repeated multiple times or by multiple agents creates complexity.
By tying pearls repeatedly on a string of sinew, a complex nervous system emerges, giving physical form to the calming or healing effects that repeated practice has on the nervous system.
At the top of the system, a spill of pearls, porcupine quills, trade beads, and abalone buttons create a bead soup that grounds the piece in tradition.
Exhibited either on the floor in rejection of the plinth or mediated by hides, it lays as a sort of remainder of previous generations who leave behind the material practices of their time. The inheritance is both the sculpture itself, but also the skills necessary to create it.