how to breathe underwater
Prints. Virtual reality experience.
This body of work consists of a series of prints and a related virtual reality (VR) experience that use underwater photogrammetry to explore monumental decay. The source material is the sunken ships of Mallows Bay, Maryland - the so-called Ghost Fleet. The work is made from the fragmented 3D-scans of these shipwrecks taken underwater. The resulting forms oscillate between the recognizable and the abstract, simultaneously disorienting and inviting.
About the site
Mallows Bay, Maryland is home to the largest ship graveyard in the Western hemisphere. During World War I, the United States rushed to build extra ships, but the war ended before they were used. The Ghost Fleet ships never left harbor or saw action. Ultimately, they were salvaged for metal, burned to the waterline and sunk in Mallows Bay. Their rotting wooden skeletons made an ideal habitat for local wildlife and in 2019 the area was designated as a national marine sanctuary by the NOAA.
The area is most accessible by kayak, during the summer. I use an underwater camera rig mounted to a kayak to capture footage of the space underwater. Through photogrammetry — the process of developing 3D models from 2D images — I have created new land/seascapes based on underwater footage of the wrecks.
More about the Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay.