Oct. 4, 1967: Three Lights (The Disaster of the NW Atlantic Cod Fishery)

2024 - Present (Ongoing) | Mixed Media, Painting, Drawing, Collage, Projection | Silent

The Northwest Atlantic was once the world's most productive fishing ground. At its peak in 1967, 810,000 tons of cod pulled from Canadian waters. That same year, on October 4th at 11:20pm, an unidentified flying object crashed at high speed into the waters of Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia. Residents of the tiny fishing village described hearing a roar of sound and seeing an object collide with the sea, its glowing lights slowly vanishing into the dark water. A yellowish foam coated the waves. Canadian rescue boats, US and Canadian government aircraft, and divers scanned the area. No wreckage or survivors were found. The NW Atlantic cod catch began to plummet shortly after the mysterious Shag Harbour incident and have never recovered.

Conspiracy theories attempt to explain unusual phenomena, casting blame on unseen, clandestine, malevolent forces. The social atomization and echo chambers of our era deepen paranoia. Meanwhile, climate crisis and mismanagement of natural resources shift and destabilize the world around us. Bewildering changes lead to desperate answers. 

In the documentation below, a minimum of 46 small (3.75” x 5.75”) pine box tops make up the shape of the pixelated UFO. The box tops are transformed with combinations of layered collage, photography, ink, drawing, and painting in acrylic and watercolor. Below, a mini projector situated on the floor casts a subtle projection of looping moving image composites of coastal landscapes shot in 16mm, and archival footage of radar and commercial fishing in the North Atlantic. Designed to be modular, individual paintings snap into a magnetic grid per the desires of the exhibition venue. The work can be scaled up or down, even entirely reshaped, depending on available space. At present, over 150 paintings are available to facilitate scaled-up versions of this work if desired, with new “pixels” available for integration and selection all the time.