Rosemary Holliday Hall

Cradle to Grave

soil spheres

“matter doesn’t disappear it transforms, energy is the same way. the earth is layer upon layer of all that has existed, remembered by dirt. it is time to turn capitalism into a fossil, time to turn the soil. - Adrienne Maree Brown, Emergent Strategy.

𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦 is a diagram of a newton’s cradle constructed with soil spheres. newton’s cradle demonstrates newton’s 3rd law of motion: that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. it also seems relevant in describing some moments of societal change. how do we change to embody the worlds we long for? to care for the soil as self?

I’ve been making these spheres for a few years now. I make them while walking in different environments. As I walk, I build up and compress dusted layers on the surface embodying a human geology. The form relating so directly to my hands that I’ve begun to understand my hands as a sphere. Making them in the environment becomes a meditation on the layers of place ♾ self.

They are all different, and hold distinct memories of a walk somewhere often near water-the ventura river bottom, sespe, cozy dell trail, my back yard. This particular set is from soils near my home.
2022
  • Rosemary Hall

Yes &

photograph

ID: photograph of a hand holding a snake skeleton in the shape of an ampersand.
2021
  • Rosemary Hall

River of Shadows

video clip

River of Shadows meditates on surface tension as a means to explore water and extractive growth-based economies as the driving force of climate change. (Created for a Third Coast Disrupted: Artists + Scientists on Climate in Chicago in 2021

This video was made specifically thinking about flooding and flood-prone infrastructure in the Chicago area. I now live in a region suffering the opposite water issue, one of continued “exceptional drought”. My home is a block away from the Ventura River, which reflects craggy oaks and Turkey vulture cyclones and now has mostly evaporated. This lack of water is most strikingly illustrated by the lake Casitas reservoir, who supplies drinking and agriculture water to the area. Image three shows the rings along the shore where the water annually recedes. I feel the water and lack of it every day.

As I reflect on water and belief systems I think of the myth of Narcissus. Narcissus dies gazing at his reflection in a pool of water. After his death a narcissus flower sprouts in his place. The myth is a cautionary tale of self-obsession especially pertinent in an age of individualism. But maybe it could be read as the opposite, if you were to sit and reflect on yourself in the water perhaps you would“remember you are water” -Adrienne Marree Brown, emergent strategy.

Caring for the waters is a process of healing ourselves and aligning belief systems again towards one that does not separate humans from nature but sees the interconnection with all systems.

How do you fall in love with your waterness? How can we care, live and die in a way that supports the flourishing of life? With areas witnessing deluge and others drought, how do we create and support systems that are resilient, where the bubble never completely bursts and is also never completely empty?
2021
  • Rosemary Hall

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