BREACH #2

On a bare concrete floor, a weathered wooden pallet carries a heap of pale ceramic teeth, curved and pointed, some hollow and dark at the root, piled like cargo waiting to ship.
A great circle of netting hangs on a deep teal wall, a whale’s eye stitched into it in fine pale thread, watching. Below, on a shipping pallet, sixty pale ceramic teeth lie heaped like a jaw let go. Beyond the doorway, an ocean map glows blue.
Title
BREACH #2
Artist
Courtney M. Leonard
Date
2016
Description
Sixty ceramic sperm whale teeth heaped on a wooden shipping pallet, part of the BREACH series that Shinnecock artist Courtney M. Leonard began in 2014 to explore the many meanings of the word breach. Shown in Weather and the Whale at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences, UC Santa Cruz, the work questions US environmental policy and economics and points to the role of industrial shipping in whale deaths.
Artwork Type
Sculpture
Installation
Materiality
Ceramics
Wood
Climate & Ecology Themes
Oceans and Coasts
Biodiversity and Species Loss
Indigenous Knowledge and Sovereignty
Concepts
More-than-Human Relations
Colonialism and Decolonization
Memory and History
Ecological Domain / Habitat
Open Ocean
Methods & Approaches
Art and Science Collaboration
Audience / Engagement Type
Public / General Audience
Location
Institute of the Arts and Sciences, 100 Panetta Ave, Santa Cruz, California
Geographic Scope
International / Global
Rights
Rights held by artist or creator
Website
courtneymleonard.com
Affiliated Organizations
Weather and the Whale
UCSC Institute of the Arts and Sciences
Discipline / Field
Arts & Design
Item sets
California Art & Climate Archive
UC Santa Cruz
Media
On a bare concrete floor, a weathered wooden pallet carries a heap of pale ceramic teeth, curved and pointed, some hollow and dark at the root, piled like cargo waiting to ship.Courtney M. Leonard, BREACH #2
A great circle of netting hangs on a deep teal wall, a whale’s eye stitched into it in fine pale thread, watching. Below, on a shipping pallet, sixty pale ceramic teeth lie heaped like a jaw let go. Beyond the doorway, an ocean map glows blue.Carolina Caycedo and Courtney M. Leonard, When Whale looks at Human and BREACH #2