Funding for this project is provided in part
by the Broward County Board of County Commissioners
as recommended by the Broward Cultural Council.

This project is supported in part by an award
from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Mangrove Mud Womp is a temporary public art residency project for Anne Kolb Nature Center, Hollywood, FL. This residency project is part of a larger overall exhibition with the second part of the exhibition taking place at the Second Avenue Studio, Florida Atlantic University’s downtown Fort Lauderdale campus.

I would like to thank all supporters of Mangrove Mud Womp! Julie Kahn, Randy Burman, Harold & Karen Rifas, and Joshua Butcher.

Update #1: Ephermeral Public Art

The independent intervention of artists such as myself to effectively deploy the ephemeral as a resource is not new, even if unprecedented for a fundraising effort. I would suspect part of the slow movement of the campaign is a result of not having a finished ‘art object’ to show off and entice supporters in advance. However, this project is very much about the place (mangrove estuary), the process (engagement with a licensed naturalist and personal research and exploration), and the results (photographs, drawings, and multiples) at the end of the process.

Anyone can explore this site for examples of my art production. I will not use this as a forum for the limited gallery exhibitions over the past number of years. That has been my choice as a result of negotiating ephemerality in isolated locations. Mangrove Mud Womp is partially to address this limited access to view and participate in my creative process.

Update #2: Conceptual, Time-based Photography

Shabaka, as photographic documenter and artist, often working in process with one, or possibly more persons, takes photographs not always to show what is in front of the camera, but what is behind the camera in the form of a conceptual approach. Even though trained as a photographer, Shabaka’s images document not a travelogue, but a quest. These quests often take the form of “walks” while gathering ephemeral bits of the landscape to photograph, be it botanical or geological. Hence, the still image documents a time-based process of movement and gathering. In the end, many of the gathered objects are intensely examined using macro photography which also moves the objects and materials into a different context. A context which orients the materials as precious even as they decay.

Update #3:

I’ve scheduled time at the park several times, although the weather and the local flooding killed any hopes of attending the park this past weekend, the last of October. As a result, I’ve worked in the studio on several pieces and have more in the works. I need to secure park approval for the sites I’d like to use there. I am very sensitive to the potential for human interference, my own included, in completing any of these outdoor works. Let’s just hope November will be a better month for the weather; less rain.

Update #4:

Posted here: Mangrove Mud Womp – update 3 Nov., 2011

Update Final:

The exhibition prints, and cut out silk works were all finished in plenty of time to be hung on a single day. The listing of works was completed and posted the following day. Third Avenue Annual Artwalk was a slow evening but the artist’s reception midweek will allow more viewings of the exhibition as completed.

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Images from: Mangrove Mud Womp
(available archival print, on Canson paper)