Rockpool is an immersive diorama providing us a window into an aquatic ecosystem. Conceived during the extended 2020 lockdowns in Melbourne, this artwork evolved in context of a longing and desire to see, touch, smell, taste and be enveloped within natural environments. This portal offers a perspective into a rockpool dwellers life, inviting us to contemplate what it might look like or feel to be ‘other-than-human’ for a moment.
Rockpool is an immersive diorama that provides a window into an aquatic ecosystem. Conceived during the extended lockdown period in Melbourne in 2020, this artwork evolved in context of my longing for the ocean and a desire to see, touch, smell, taste and be enveloped within natural environments. Disrupting the urban landscape, this artwork aims to evoke a sense of reverie, of tranquillity and wonder as well as providing sanctuary.
This portal into the perspective of a rockpool dweller invites the passer-by to contemplate what it might look like or feel to be, ‘other-than-human’ for a moment, to be part of a marine habitat. Simultaneously, our human presence is doubled by a mirrored self, reflected as we peer into the water’s surface. Our human form encroaches, we see ourselves immersed and yet separate to this miniature world. Are we Narcissus admiring our reflection in this pool, or are we contemplating the beauty of nature outside of ourselves?
As a human, I often feel limited by the physical constraints of my anatomical body – within a vast landscape I sometimes feel too small, never tall or high enough to get a proper birds-eye-view. Peering into a rockpool I am too large, a giant imposing on the tranquil microcosm. My sense of scale changes in relation to the natural world and I experience a longing to inhabit impossibly sized and unattainable environments. Last year during Covid-19 lockdowns, I spent long periods inside the same room, viewing the same vistas - my own mini-world. My urban ecosystem felt at times comforting and protective from the pandemic, whilst also being claustrophobic and limited. I began to feel like I inhabited every inch of the house in a way I had not previously, and the interior space was my whole world. Small acts like visiting the market and seeing other people felt simultaneously exciting, scary, and precious. I have drawn similarities between my experience in 2020 and the nature of rockpools. Existing in constant states of flux [1], rockpools shift between calmness, entrapment and then chaos and freedom as tides come rushing to release and replenish their contents.
Two conflicting ideas come to mind when I contemplate the fringe of the sea[2]; beaches and rockpools offer an overwhelming sense of timelessness, as we envision eons stretching back to when these intertidal pools formed in molten lava, whittling winds and shifting tectonic plates. These bodies of water, both calming and fearless allow us to feel the expansiveness of the ocean in miniature form whilst recognising our human presence is, geologically speaking, recent and inconsequential in relation to these ecosystems. However, this isn’t really true – now in the Anthropocene, human activities have caused rising temperatures and sea levels impacting not only rockpools but everything.
With a background in film and animation, I wanted to explore an alternative way of transporting viewers to another place, to utilize the tangibility of a physical space rather than the flat plane of a screen and YX-plane. One’s sense of depth and the Z-plane in physical space helps orientate our perspective and believability of place. Dioramas are a constructed set of a place in miniature form, and since I was little I have admired and enjoyed viewing and creating them out of paper. This larger version is a more robust form than any I have previously created. Paradoxically, while the rockpool depicts an organic microcosm, this synthetic pool is far from real, being constructed from acrylic paint, plastic Perspex, mirror, MDF, glue and LED lighting. It is manifested by the very materials that pollute and destroy natural environments. The glowing lights and oversaturated colours offer an enticing yet artificial prototype in attempt to recreate and remind us of the wonder one feels when experiencing the real thing.
Rockpool, 2021
Currently showing at Dot.Space, 56 Charles St, Northcote VIC 3070
Materials: MDF, Perspex, acrylic paint, LED lights, mirror
Fabrication: 3D modelling by Albert Rex, laser cutting by Nicholas Atkins, Victorian Wooden Boat Centre
1200mm long 700mm high 500mm deep
This artwork is for sale. Price upon application .
Scarlet Sykes Hesterman is a local artist and animator, working and creating on the lands of the Wurundjeri People.
[1] Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter GASTON BACHELARD 1942
[2] The Fringe of the Sea, ISOBEL BENNETT 1966