The Science
Windrows (Paradox) is an entangled artwork comprising photographs (taken by the artist’s mother in coastal Newfoundland (Ktaqmkuk) in 1973), text, and an artistic rendering of a wind energy resource contour map. Traces of the wind contours reverberate across the page, through narrative text comparing two island figures: Newfoundland and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Windrows (Paradox) ruminates on the contradictory manifestations of abundance and loss in the two islands. While one is marked by the devastating demise and squandering of something highly valued and once thought to be endless, the Atlantic cod, the other is a seemingly permanent mass; an assemblage of discarded items of little (perceived) value typically thought of as temporary.
The wind resource map used here was developed as part of the growing renewable energy sector in Newfoundland and Labrador. Just as the colonists embark on this next stage of their transactional negotiation with the wind, the Pacific winds gather scattered flotsam and detritus to form a different kind of colony characterised by a different flavour of abundance and misuse.
Whether natural or intentional, windrows* manifest as the result of an energetic dialogue of extremes. When formed naturally, they can offer an ironically static symbol of animation and plenitude — and, when anthropogenic, they can reflect bounty and what is (not) valued. Ocean windrows of plastic debris are a retrospective of the mundane and unremembered, and a foreshadowing of the abyss, their permanence and endurance a chilling reminder of the constancy of the consumption and production that feeds them.
*A natural phenomenon caused by wind action. The term also has agricultural applications.
Resources
Wind map source: Khan, M. J., & Iqbal, M. T. (2004). Wind energy resource map of Newfoundland. Renewable Energy, 29, 1211–1221. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2003.12.015
Frick Miller, K., & Thornhill Verma, J. (2021). Last Fish, First Boat [Short film]. FilmFreeway. https://filmfreeway.com/LastFishFirstBoat
Pugh, J., & Chandler, D. (2021). Anthropocene Islands: Entangled Worlds. University of Westminster Press. Free download: https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/m/10.16997/book52/
Roberts, B. R., & Stephens, M. A. (2017). Introduction. In B. R. Roberts & M. A Stephens (Eds.), Archipelagic American Studies (pp. 1–54). Free download: https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/chapter-pdf/577795/9780822373209-001.pdf
The Artist
Maggie J. Whitten Henry is an interdisciplinary artist and scholar with a focus on sense of place and identity in island and rural contexts. Lingering at the complex intersection of creative practice, theoretical curiosity, and academic research methods, her work explores relational thinking and its potential to inspire alternative ways of communicating, connecting, being, and knowing. Maggie currently lives and works in Epekwitk (Prince Edward Island, Canada), on ancestral and unceded L’nu/Mi’kmaq territory.
Website: mjwh.ca / Instagram: @recursiveislandness / Twitter: @MaggieJWHenry
Copyright statement. This work is published under the CC BY-NC-SA license