Press
Ecofeminist Art Takes Root
“[A Memory of Clean Water (1985)] is a landmark work in Damon’s oeuvre, but it also signifies a moment of reckoning in which she decided that her activism had to employ new tactics and take new forms to be effective.”
ecofeminism(s) at Thomas Erben Gallery offers an urgent reminder of our present climate and human rights emergencies. Likewise, the works featured imply that another world is, and has always been, possible.
by Cassie Packard, Hyperallergic
Betsy Damon’s “The Memory of Clean Water” (1985) is another such touchstone. Using handmade paper pulp, Damon made a 250-foot cast of Utah’s Castle Creek riverbed before the river was dammed. The sculpture climbs the gallery walls and spills onto the floor. It is as delicate as it is massive, its fragile multicolored surface pockmarked with small holes and natural detritus. Damon made the work with a traditional art context in mind. However, when she learned about pollutants in the river she “woke up”, realizing that she wanted to turn her focus toward community organizing, teaching, and founding a water-related nonprofit. The sculpture is a landmark work in Damon’s oeuvre, but it also signifies a moment of reckoning in which she decided that her activism had to employ new tactics and take new forms to be effective.