What We Gathered
Discarded fishing line and plastic debris accumulate along shorelines and waterways, often going unseen until their consequences become visible in injury and loss. Monofilament line, valued for its strength and near invisibility in water, persists in the environment long after its intended use. Entanglement in these materials can immobilize birds, restrict movement, and lead to starvation, drowning, or infection.
Shorebirds and wading birds are particularly vulnerable. As they move through shallow water and along the edges of rivers and lakes, their long legs and wide wings easily catch in abandoned line or fragments of netting. What functions as a tool for capture becomes, when discarded, an indiscriminate trap.
In this sculpture, a found branch is bound together with a porcelain heron wing and leg, each form caught and contorted by strands of fishing line. The gesture recalls both the bird’s grace in motion and the abrupt interruption of that movement. By foregrounding entanglement, the work points to the persistent presence of plastic waste in aquatic ecosystems and the often invisible harm it inflicts on the species that inhabit them