Waterbike

Title: Waterbike (studio images)
Time: July-August, 2023 while Artist-In-Residence at Playa near Summer Lake, Oregon USA

Size: 40″ x 52″ x 61″
Materials: bicycle, plastic water jugs, irrigation tubing, car roof rack, metal campfire cooking rack, highway guardrail reflector, plastic liner from a 5-gallon round water cooler, stakes from a pop-up shade tent, license plate, load straps, clamps (most materials found in the playa/desert or roadside or local yard/estate sale free piles)

Details (condensed):
“A dry lake bed, also known as a playa, is a basin or depression that formerly contained a standing surface water body, which disappears when evaporation processes exceed recharge.” Wikipedia

Pairing this water bike with the landscape of the desert allows me to reflect on the cycle of weather/climate extremes and how we might survive, how I might I survive in a devoid landscape.

Details (expanded):
“A dry lake bed, also known as a playa, is a basin or depression that formerly contained a standing surface water body, which disappears when evaporation processes exceed recharge.” Wikipedia

Pairing this water bike with the landscape of the desert allows me to reflect on the cycle of weather/climate extremes and how we might survive, how I might I survive in a devoid landscape.

The low-tech nature of this contraption points toward resourcefulness and patience, challenging notions of navigating a landscape. Waterbike is a bit ridiculous, potentially humorous, yet also stems from the chasm that I feel, loneliness and deep emotional distress about how the climate crisis affects humans unequally due to systematic dysfunction and foundational inequalities.