Murmurations 2016
Murmurations 2016, Lead, Steel, Ash, and Performance
Origami cranes constructed of lead hanging in a soaring ten foot open steel structure invite viewers to step outside of the gallery and into a new space to contemplate what flies above and what lies beneath their feet. Three inches of grey ash cover the floor of the built environment. Evocative of crematorial ash, nuclear fallout ash, or the forest floor after a wild fire, viewers exploration of the two materials, lead origami cranes and ash, what they should be made of versus what they are made of and their inherent oppositional materiality makes performers out of participants. As bodies enter the space, their juxtaposition to the environment and their destruction of patterns raked in the ash hints at personal responsibility after destruction. The artist’s presence within the work, embodied in a Zen garden rake, delegates responsibility for re-raking the ash into pattern. This work captures the fascination with repetition, war, and labor embodied in much of Kaminski’s work, evoking through its title the constant balance we seek between order and chaos.