SUSAN FEINDEL
'Marine Installations'
March 3 - April 2, 2002
Opening: Sunday, March 3, 2 - 5 PM

Marine Installations draws attention to human interactions with marine life and habitats of Canada’s Eastern Continental Shelf.

Dialogues with scientists, academics, fishermen, and my residency aboard oceanography vessel C.C.G.S. Hudson, have guided my research for preparation and completion of Marine Installations. Extraordinary views by video and sonar side scan, have offered me the illusion of intimacy with benthic (ocean bottom) habitats of the Scotia Banks, deep sea coral habitats at the edge of the shelf, and the Grand Banks near Hibernia. The wonders of these immense and mysterious habitats, connect us to a vast food supply and our human dependency upon it. The subject of controversy; scientific, moral, and political, they have had an impact on my personal representation and understanding of this developing body of work.

I became aware of our northern deep sea coral environment in 1999, an animal habitat corresponding not only with the hydrocarbon sedimentation of the Triassic-Jurassic areas, (and by extension, the oil/gas industry) but also with the gigantic off-shore fishing zones which are the global target of ocean canneries and fishing draggers. This habitat, stretching south along the eastern seaboard and north, past Newfoundland, has been sited by fishermen and scientists, as a "seat" of marine life - the preferred environment for the security and food of many juvenile fish and, by extension, the larger fish which feed on them. Beneath the limit of our sun’s rays at 300-1500 meters, these habitats were little known to most people other than fishermen, their vital role in the food chain, barely suspected. Global estimates suggest that the destruction of coral beds, marine habitats, and spawning grounds, by fishing gear, during the past 30 years, exceeds that of rain forest clear cutting.

- Susan Feindel

Susan Fiendel lives and works in Chester, Nova Scotia.