July 9th 6-8 pm at The Shed Space in partnership with RESORT, Baltimore Underground Science Space, and UMD Cicada Crew
The Timekeepers Workshop is a material workshop conducted by Sasha Fishman, coinciding with her first solo exhibition, The Space Between Your Nostrils, at RESORT, and the Brood X emergence. In the early stages of planning the workshop, the artist called on the community to collect the moulted cicada shells from around their homes and walking routes, and to deposit them in designated collection boxes around the city. Locations include Waverly, the Mt. Washington Arboretum, Park School, Goucher College, Charles Village, and more. Please reach out for collection box details and to find one near you!
As an artist who is driven by material exploration, Sasha invites the attendees into her process, utilizing the collected shells to produce a bioplastic. The group will learn together to extract chitin, a biopolymer found in cicada shells that can be used as a potential replacement for petroleum plastics, and create sheets of translucent material that is compostable. Participants will also be invited to experiment with sculptural processes, including making molds from cicada wings.
While working in a direct, source-driven relationship to her materials, Sasha has found it important to examine the ethical questions that arise. She will lead a discussion on the ethics of extraction and shared material resources, questioning the scale of individual versus industrial, how extraction has impacted certain communities, and how to establish an extraction threshold.
As we engage with the abundance of biomaterial around us, it is exciting and important to consider the immediate potential. However, we should be conscious of this temporary condition and ask how it changes the environment over a longer period of time.
Are you enjoying all the aspects of the Brood X emergence?
Remember to check out Cicada Mania, the UMD Cicada Crew, + report any cicadas you see to the Cicada Safari App
Sasha Fishman is a sculptor and researcher based in Los Angeles, originally from Baltimore, Maryland. She is particularly interested in marine biomaterials, toxicology + genetic engineering as points for critical analysis + mechanisms for sculpting. Fishman considers her studio practice to be equal parts research and creative output.
Fishman has exhibited at Spring/Break LA (2020); Ars Electronica, Los Angeles (2020); Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York (2019); Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles (2020); the Visual Arts Center, Austin (2019, 2018, 2017); and the Rosenberg Gallery at Goucher College, Baltimore (2019) among others. She has presented her work, run workshops and given talks at Caltech (2020), Genspace (2021), and UCLA, University of Denver, and CSULB (2021). She holds a B.F.A. in Studio Art from The University of Texas at Austin (2018). Fishman has been a recipient of numerous awards, including a grant from The Dallas Museum of Art (2018), research fellowships from Caltech (2020), The University of Texas at Austin (2018), and scholarships from The Baltimore Jewelry Center, Urban Glass, Oxbow and Anderson Ranch. Fishman is currently organizing a community cicada shell collection and bioplastic extraction workshop with The Shed Space in Baltimore and an artistic research assistant at SUPERCOLLIDER Gallery.
