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Keri Rosebraugh

USA, France

Keri seeks to find connections between man and nature, exploring how humans and the environment affect each other. Her artwork explores human’s quest for comfort versus our need for mankind to live mindfully on this earth. Her practice is based on the exchange of ideas and resources, sometimes with direct participation of people as possible vehicles for social change. Her work nurtures a discourse on human existence as a whole, its kinship to systems of control, time, and nature. Through painting, sculpture, video, and installation, Rosebraugh’s creations attempt to transcend the ruins of the past and the wounds of the present, by offering a context that facilitates the analysis of our responsibility and needs in a future unknown.

https://www.kerirosebraugh.com

Response to the question:

I think about water alot. I think about it when I am in the shower, while doing dishes, while drinking water, and while not drinking enough water. Our bodies are made up of 60-70% water, so really we are all water just walking around in different containers.

Humans have the ability to retain memory. We hold on tightly to precious moments in time as the hours press onward. I believe that water also retains memory. Through previous studies I have found that water crystals, at times when frozen, mimic the shapes of their surroundings. As water echoes the life around it, life also mirrors water. Water is a portal between form (us) and formlessness (nature). Naturalist John Muir stated that, “The river runs through us not past us.”

We can’t stop the flow of the river or the flow of time. But why do we live in a world where the river and time only flow in one direction? Instead of moving from here to there, what if the river moved from there to here? Instead of time flowing from the past to the present, what if it moved from the present to the past? This
would take away the concept of cause and effect. Currently each moment is the decay product of the previous one. If time went backwards we would relinquish the control of polluting our water. What if resources that existed yesterday but don’t exist tomorrow were to reappear because of a future to past time direction?

If time went backwards, what would be the definition of memory? Would we have one? If we stop remembering then we will think that the water we see at the source of the river is different from the water we see from the waterfall, and different from the water at the marina or from the waves in the ocean. We will sadly see things as divided when in actuality they are all one.

Notes on exposure:

- This is the first time I have ever exposed sea water. Previous studies include rivers, lakes and ponds.
- This is the first time I have not had lids on the containers holding the water samples.
- Each sample sat on top of a mirrored paper, on a white covered table.
- The aquaduct water formed little circles of skin on the top of each glass (floating on the top of the water) whereas the water from the sea did not.
- Most samples of water seemed to have evaporated approximately 1/8” to 1/4” from the beginning of exposure to the end of exposure - one week.
- The ateliers at the museum are underground and tend to be dark unless the lights are on. They will spend a good amount of time in the dark with little to no natural light.
- The water samples will be exposed to sound also, as Amouri will be experimenting with his sound art in the atelier next door.

Unexpected issues which arose before, during, and after the freezing of the water crystals ofter one week:

- I forgot a vital piece of the camera which connects it to the microscope. This piece allows the camera to film the freezing process of each crystal. I searched all over Napoli for the part but had no luck, so ended up super gluing the lense of the camera to the lense of the microscope and then taping it with electrical tape to hold it on.

- Towards the end of the process of freezing the crystals I became distracted, turned around and knocked the ashtray which holds the slides and water samples onto the floor. It broke in a million pieces.

- The camera card would not download the images onto my ipad (in past research I had used my computer but did not have it with me in Italy). I had to have Maayan download them on to her computer and then I could only exhibit them on a loop, rather than making an organized video for presentation.

- To make sure the battery was full I plugged in the projector to an outlet all day prior to the exhibition. Unbeknownst to me, the adapter was not working, so after ten minutes into the exhibition, the battery died. I had to exhibit the water crystal results on my ipad - a much smaller viewing.

- Towards the end of the night, Peppi Morra had come downstairs to speak with the artists about their projects. Five minutes before he was arriving at my piece, my ipad battery died. I hurried to recharge it as much as I could before he arrived, but in the end the battery was too low, forcing the light to be very dim on the moniter, which exhibited the piece a bit poorly.