Gwen Law
The Wave
2022
The Living Womb
2023
The Wave is a large wave-shaped inflatable–an immersive, communal space for people to inhabit. The resulting space is a social atmosphere of play, interaction, and observation. The Wave video is of a never-ending loop of waves of garbage crashing into shore unable to escape the rhythm of the ocean. I’m looking at the connections we have with garbage both publicly and privately as the unclaimed ocean garbage becomes the narrative on the structure itself. We often see garbage being created personally, but we have to also look at corporations as well. Garbage moves from a private, personal entity into the realm of the public. Public garbage is often stripped of identity, responsibility, and concern. By projecting on and into The Wave, into the network I am pushing public garbage back into a personal habitat.The
Living Womb is a public inflatable space that visitors can enter through a zippered wall. Projections of oil and water as well as lights illuminate the space while air flows in the interior. The resulting space allows visitors to mingle with not only interior plastic objects but with light and projections which automatically engage the senses. By making the whole experience plastic I’m asking us to consider the contained network made of people/air/light/oil and habitat. While inhabiting a contained plastic environment, one is forced to contend with the intransience of plastics. The fleeting nature of single-use plastics creates an apathetic environment. In creating an unnatural world, I reconsider how we interact with plastic by treating it as precious and life-giving. Being contained within a plastic environment creates this shift by making a visitor rely on it as shelter, for air, for dispersing light.