I’m Not Your Succulent Justices Roberts Alito Barrett Gorsuch Kavanaugh Thomas! Women’s Circle’s
open air studio Shinnecock Hills spacetime (works in process ongoing since 2022)
I Won’t Carry Your Water is a collaborative work by Hope Sandrow (I’m Not Your Succulent Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett) and Brianna L. Hernández (Aqui Descansamos), which explores concerns on climate justice, rewilding, and restoration amidst declining natural environments necessary for sustaining biodiversity and how the arts play a role in generating constructive conversation and engagement on these topics. Paired together, this work gives space to consider the relationship between the personal and communal ecosystems we all share.
Sandrow’s funerary easel “off” the ground is adorned with succulents growing multi-directionally from three floating Orbs. This work from her new series, "I’m Not Your Succulent Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett", speaks to the recent Supreme Court’s rulings against long-standing regulations for clean water and air as well as giving voice to “emotions” evoked by “the seven” (unelected) supreme court justices whose rulings remove restrictions from gun ownership while failing to recognize “My Body My Rights”.
Playing on the phrase “carry your water”, the succulents embody these critical issues. The form references the history of LongHouse: three Orb planters hold thirty-seven planting holes corresponding to the number of years since Jack Larsen built LongHouse, and conceptually with the intention of the gardens to “serve as a living case study of the interaction between plants and people in the 21st century.” The Orbs also make a visual nod to Buckminster Fuller’s iconic " The Fly’s Eye Dome" permanently sited nearby.
In dialogue with Sandrow, Hernández presents a plant-based casket “on” the ground as part of her ongoing series, "Aquí Descansamos", which invites visitors to imagine more personalized and culturally significant burial options. This invitation creates a space, in an imaginative, and unique fashion, for considering one’s end-of-life wishes, while simultaneously raising awareness of green-burial alternatives to conventional burial practices. Oftentimes, conventional burial involves toxic chemicals, industrial plastics, and aggressive changes to the landscape causing a lasting impact that is harmful to the soil and surrounding ecosystem. By seeking out, choosing, and advocating for greener burial options, we can move towards more eco-friendly ways of honoring the dead and consider our relation to the earth as we return to it. In this collaborative work, Hernández has presented the "planter" as the vessel constructed from plants, within which the body is to be planted, speaking to the necessary reciprocal relationship between humans and the natural world. Filled with dried flowers and covered in preserved moss, this casket speaks visually and conceptually to Sandrow's funerary easel in both the offerings of mourning as well as the natural water retention of these plants utilized for sustainable self-nourishment of the land.
