To create more accountable and inclusive planning systems, I believe there is a need to adopt holistic approaches that consider the needs and perspectives of all participants, including non-human entities.
Collectivism Over Individualism: Sculpting Towards Sustainability | Mary Mattingly
Mary Mattingly, a New York-based visual artist, grew up in an agricultural town where concerns about water shaped her understanding of the environmental crisis and deepened her connection to Mother Earth.
Her work, influenced by these concerns about nature, focuses on sustainability, climate change, relocation, and essential needs such as clean water, shelter, and food access. Through photography, performance, portable architecture, and sculptural ecosystems, she reflects the complexity and fluidity of life support systems. Her life-size multimedia and environmental projects address present-day challenges and propose specific solutions and architectural prototypes, with the aim of building a restorative relationship with nature.
From capturing abandoned mines to collecting glacier water, your art is both construction and a soothing dismantling of earth elements. It appears to me that you are conserving life. How would you describe your art practice in relation to the earth?
My art practice is deeply intertwined with my life and the earth, my life support system.
A lot of my work deals with what I’d consider just basic human necessities, like clean water, shelter, and food access. But it’s also about listening, about poetry and accumulation, about looking around to discover the origins of the things I consume. I see my work as a way to provoke thought about our relationship with the planet and with our communities. By addressing issues like water contamination and habitat destruction, I am doing what I believe is urgent while trying to understand these urgent issues on multiple levels.
You build complex ecosystems that imitate the structured cities we live in, such as ‘Ebb of a Spring Tide’, which overlooks Manhattan. Would it be correct to state that your perplexed artworks establish fluidity in life on a personal level?
Yes, I do want my artwork to reflect the complexity and fluidity of life and life support systems, and I appreciate doing this kind of ecosystem-building in a built environment where it is often in contrast. ‘Ebb of a Spring Tide’ embodies this by representing my old apartment building in Brooklyn that was letting water in every time high tide coincided with a rainstorm. The scaffolding held representations of the building, from random doors, sinks, tubs, and stairs to a set of vessels with water being pumped through them. The water sped up when the tide was coming in and slowed down when it was receding.
These installations serve as metaphors for the interconnectedness of urban environments with natural systems, encouraging reflection on how we are asked to navigate and adapt to these complexities.
You grew up in a town plagued by flooding and water contamination. Water constantly appears in your work. How would you describe your connection with water? Are your art practices influenced by childhood experiences with water?
My connection with water is multifaceted. Growing up in a town with flooding and water contamination issues made me aware of water’s vital role and its potential dangers. These early experiences shaped my understanding of water as a powerful, life-sustaining element that demands respect and careful stewardship. It affected me and continues to do so. This connection is evident in my work, where water often serves as a central subject, a great teacher, symbolising both our essences and fragilities.
In your ‘Pipelines and Permafrost’ collage series, you discuss the earth’s chronology, geological scope, and strata. How do you approach stratification in your life and art? Is it digging through layers or overlapping them?
Stratification is something I’m continually trying to get away from, so overlapping them would be more accurate for me as interconnectedness is key. By layering materials, narratives, and meanings with personal truths.
I am attempting to create artworks that reflect how I understand the multifaceted nature of existence and the cumulative impact of my actions on the earth, through making and living.
Can you elaborate on the concept of a water clock, which you used in pieces such as ‘Limnal Lacrimos’’ and ‘Ebb of a Spring Tide’? How did the concept emerge and evolve into a nine-month-long time teller in ‘Limnal Lacrimosa’?
I had been thinking about Limnal Lacrimosa as a living system. In this living system, the building was a part of it, and the collected glacier water was moving through it. The sound was evident, and time cycles were exemplified through the way that the glacier water sped up or slowed down depending on the temperature in Glacier National Park. The concept of the water clock emerged as I began listening to the water hitting the different vessels I’d placed around the building, and it sounded like a wall clock. Of course, the timing was inconsistent, and it occurred to me that the water was telling its own time. One visitor came into the installation and confirmed this. That’s when I knew what it was. ‘Limnal Lacrimosa’ became a nine-month-long installation, symbolising the gestational period of human life and the nature of time through water, emphasising the importance of water in sustaining life.
Your public art inspires collaborative reimagining and dreaming. I quote you: “The ebb of a spring tide is a recreation of a recurring dream.” People might say that dreams aren’t real, but dreamers are! What are you dreaming of now? And what’s your message to the dreamers out there?
I guess I’ve been dreaming about water again, about islands. I’d say, sometimes it’s difficult to make the space to remember my dreams but I’m usually glad when I can and try to let them guide me.
After reviewing your work, your frequent references to poets, literature, and global readings seem natural. What is one reading recommendation for us, given our shared love for the environment and its fragile ecosystems?
It’s difficult to pick one, but in keeping with your questions and my responses to this point, I want to recommend ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ by Robin Wall Kimmerer. This book weaves together indigenous wisdom, more codified scientific knowledge, and personal reflections on the interdependencies of the life we’re surrounded by. There’s a kinship in that duality, and I’m a big believer in merging dualities. Robin’s offers insights into how people can cultivate a more respectful and reciprocal relationship with the earth, making it a valuable book for anyone committed to stewardship, and if you’re not, then she will capture you with the depth of her wisdom and experience.
Mobility is a recurring theme in your work, seen in creations like ‘Wetland’ and ‘Wearable Homes’. How can we establish a sense of belonging to the land during uncertain times? What instincts as nomadic primates could we harness as human beings?
Yes, many of my sculptures are mobile, mostly for necessity. I have lived in coastal environments that often demand moving for one reason or another, so thinking about living on the water made sense to me at a certain point. But also, because the possibilities for co-creating temporary projects are many compared to the permanent ones, making something that is mobile means it can have a second and third life. For mobility as a lifeway, I believe it’s important to take only what I need and leave enough for those who come after me. This involves fostering a deep appreciation for the places I inhabit and taking pride in being a good guest and a good host. When I can learn to be more flexible, it’s often difficult, but I also find resilience in that. Mobility does not preclude building strong, supportive communities that prioritise sustainability and mutual aid, and while it can be a challenge, it’s essential in the world today, especially as more and more people are being forced to move due to the climate crisis.
Growing or picking food on New York’s public land has been illegal for almost a century. You created Swale to use marine common law for a fresh food community garden. Provocative, playful, and inventive. How and why did you create Swale?
Yes, I created Swale as a response to the lack of affordable access to fresh, healthy food in the area I live in. By using marine common law, Swale challenged existing regulations and demonstrated the potential for public spaces to support food sovereignty. The project aimed to provoke thought and inspire action towards more equitable and sustainable food systems. It invited communities to engage with and take ownership of their local environments and has had lasting effects, especially with the “Foodway” that was built by the NYC Department of Parks in Concrete Plant Park in the Bronx. This is the first place in over 100 years that NYC has allowed public foraging in a public park, and this one is open 24 hours a day.
Urban development significantly impacts local peripheries. As an artist working with local ecologies, how do you define ‘local’? How can we create systems for more accountable and inclusive planning, involving both human and non-human entities?
Well, I think my definition of local changes depending on the context I’m in or talking about. At home in NYC, local could mean the entire city, or it could be my neighbourhood park. Most often, I define ‘local’ as the immediate environment and community where I’m situated. To create more accountable and inclusive planning systems, I believe there is a need to adopt holistic approaches that consider the needs and perspectives of all participants, including non-human entities. This involves ensuring that projects are designed and implemented with a deep respect for local ecologies and the well-being of all inhabitants.
We all live in an interconnected ecosystem. Our stories are inseparable. Do you consider your creation to have this universal approach?
Without negating the importance of our many differences as humans, there are some essentials that most people share, and these essentials have seemed to be my focus, although my approach to them is specific. But my work is grounded in the belief that we are all part of an interconnected ecosystem.
I’m pulling out aspects of that interconnectivity and illustrating it, sometimes through a sculpture that acts as a stage and sometimes as a living system. By creating work that highlights these connections, my big aims are to make responsibility seem commonplace, highlight collectivity over the individual, and prioritise maintenance over building something new.
Social scientist Donella Meadows has written about trigger point theories of changing a system in ways that resonate with me, especially when she writes that some of the most powerful ways to change a system are through events and communication, both of which can work to change the purpose of a system. Coalition building towards big change in the purpose of a system built on extraction is something I know art has a role in.
Interview by Vanshika Agrawal
