Salt and Sand

Salt and Sand is an experimental exhibition by interdisciplinary artist Edrin Symonette, bringing together his new sculptural series, Cultural Relics, with a new series of salt print photographs. Both bodies of work present the Bahamian body as indistinguishable from landscape, conflating the laissez-faire attitude toward global warming with the flippant way the people of the islands are treated. Salt and Sand considers how these attitudes cause decay to our natural environments and degrade communities through unprecedented environmental tragedy.

The Cultural Relics are 3D prints which are cast into silicone and filled with a composite substrate made from crushed queen conch shell, sand, salt, and marine resin. The salt prints are microscopic photographs of the skin texture of his family juxtaposed against captured landscape textures found around Eleuthera. Both bodies of work went through various methods of experimentation and manipulation to mimic the natural changes the body and landscape go through when encountering different environmental conditions.

The work moves between permanence and change, with salt continuing to migrate, crystallise, and alter the work’s appearance. This hybridity connects the body to the environment, rejecting the colonial gaze and reappropriating it into a message about a people in constant negotiation with the environment – a relationship rife with environmental pressure, memory, and care.

Edrin Symonette (b. 1986, The Bahamas) is an interdisciplinary artist who is particularly intrigued by the process of life-casting and sculpture. Raised in Eleuthera, he is inspired by the natural beauty of island life and seeks to fill his practice with it. His work has been exhibited in various spaces across The Bahamas, including the Central Bank Gallery, Hillside House, Pro Gallery, The Ladder Gallery, Lyford Cay Club, The Island House, and The Current at Baha Mar. His work has also been shown internationally at SCOPE. His work is also included in many private collections across the country.