Migrations, The Milk of Dreams

The monumental Migrations elaborates upon Marguerite’s earlier projects High Tide and Mist (both 2019), following mythologist Joseph Campbell’s theory that the ‘recognition of mortality and the requirement to transcend it is the first great impulse to mythology.’ Installed in Venice’s ancient shipyard the Arsenale, the sculptures take on the form of three giant marine mammals engaged in a ritual moon dance amid cresting waves. Made from biological and synthetic resin, as well as algae, bone, ocean plastic, glass and mineral dust, Migrations spring up from an elevated platform, each figure bearing a glowing ‘mermaid’s purse’ or precious, travelling sac. Their forms evoke a mythic majesty but also refer to the increasingly frequent flooding of Venice which, in 2019, saw 80% of the city submerged. Each of the sculptural trio is titled after a natural phenomenon; El Niño, the warming of sea surface temperature in the tropical Eastern Pacific; La Niña, for episodes of cooler-than-average sea surface temperature; and Kuroshio, a warm ocean current that flows northward, off the East coast of Japan. Associated with movement, displacement and irrevocable change, the notion of ‘currents’ also evokes the abstract and invisible forces – spiritual, political, economic or otherwise – that shape reality every day. Conveying flow and force, strength and vulnerability, the streamlined forms of Migrations elicit questions around humankind’s denial about the impending climate disaster, and the forcible move that may be necessitated by an event like a great deluge.