2023 Fall Core Studio III STU 1211
Instructor: Rosalea Monacella
"Nothing really special, nothing particularly profound. Marshland, that lacks vocabulary cannot be seen, cannot be accurately, usefully visited."
- John Stilgoe
Toggling between macro-scale ecological, and infrastructural processes and the micro-scale human visitation and observation of the landscape, the project proposes a century projection of repetitive observation, archiving, and stewarded change of saltmarsh transition done in a ritual manner.
Inspired by John Stilgoe's linguistic reading, the project proposes landscape prose of registration and stewarded transition that unravel the ephemerality of processes of marshland through decommissioning soon-to-be obsolete coastal infrastructure.Sea level rise could be seen as an opportunity for regaining coastal ecological connectivity and reframe interaction with the wetland.
Through careful curation of decommissioning, registration, and transition, the work envisions expanding the marshland into a constellation and reclaiming the edge of coastal Massachusetts as a form of resilience while indexing the otherwise invisible labor of the marshland. By tracing and probing the utterly common landscape of the changing marshes, the project explores a vernacular yet territorial coastal landscape gesture.
Guzzling is a sort of way for the ocean,
A potential crossing-through place for the sea;
A potential crossing-through place for the sea;
In the stillness of the morn, Each step unfolds;
Through quaking lands,
Where secrets tend to hold,
Dirt rises and falls beneath the feet,
From thick tussocks to marshes’ watery bed;
Where secrets tend to hold,
Dirt rises and falls beneath the feet,
From thick tussocks to marshes’ watery bed;
Far beyond the flats,
Gleam the spits,
Their white sand contrasts with the greys and
browns of the muddy flats.
Gleam the spits,
Their white sand contrasts with the greys and
browns of the muddy flats.
The beauty that shimmers in the yellow afternoons of October,
whoever could clutch,
rendering looming,
come dimly into the view;
Far off,
Upon the silver skyline,
whoever could clutch,
rendering looming,
come dimly into the view;
Far off,
Upon the silver skyline,
Would rise a puff of smoke from a punt,
Invisible from its flatness and its white paint.
Invisible from its flatness and its white paint.
Sparrows congregate on fence rails,
Claiming electric transmission lines.
A flock mounts into the air in irregular circles,
At times drifting together
whirling about like masses of smoke,
all the time rising higher and higher.
Claiming electric transmission lines.
A flock mounts into the air in irregular circles,
At times drifting together
whirling about like masses of smoke,
all the time rising higher and higher.
The color of chartreuse
Clumps of marsh grass losing their grip;
Clumps of marsh grass losing their grip;
Tumbling from the steep banks into the channels.
Sinking to the grayish-black muddy bottom,
Weaving their stems in the current.
Sinking to the grayish-black muddy bottom,
Weaving their stems in the current.
Stems breach the surface
In a dance so pure,
Etching their mark into the vast greenness
In a dance so pure,
Etching their mark into the vast greenness
The marsh always weaves,
A gradient entwining ever so slowly.
A gradient entwining ever so slowly.
The realm of frostbite blue,
Ice weaves over marshlands true,
Ice weaves over marshlands true,
Halting time with a frigid kiss,
Glittering like sunlit bliss.
Glittering like sunlit bliss.
Once teeming with life’s embrace,
Now a still reflective face,
Feathers scattered,
gray and lost.
Now a still reflective face,
Feathers scattered,
gray and lost.
Muskrats break the crystal shield,
In the quiet, their fates unsealed.
In the quiet, their fates unsealed.
