Groundswell opens this Thursday at METHOD
Groundswell opens this Thursday at METHOD Courtesy of the artist

Have you ever wondered what salt in large quantities smells like? The sea maybe. Sweat. Or perhaps something mossier, funkier, and more dank. Mary Coss's latest exhibition, Groundswell, at METHOD Gallery explores the relationship between water, global warming, and culture. Coss spent two years working with spatial ecologist Roger Fuller, examining the dangerously increased salinity levels encroaching on local estuaries and thus, our freshwater resources. And just when you thought you had enough to worry about! The work in Groundswell is inspired by that research, symbolically telling this story through the medium of salt.

The show will include "Silent Salinity," a ghost meadow with 300 pieces of hand-tied wire sedge, a grasslike plant, dipped in abaca pulp, a type of fiber. The installation is part of a trilogy of shows that find it transformed—added to, and expanded upon—at each location. At Groundswell, the trilogy concludes with Mother Nature fighting back and overcoming the space in the form of a huge immersive wave. Coss will be in residence for the month creating the aforementioned wave. I'm excited to see the results! There will also be a "net" composed of wire writing that Coss tells me contains "a poetic journal entry pondering the state of the estuaries, written by my project collaborator, scientist Roger Fuller."

METHOD Gallery will be open tomorrow from 5 to 9 pm for the Pioneer Square Art Walk. See you there!

Close up of one of the nets that will be featured at the show
Close up of one of the nets that will be featured at the show Courtesy of the Artist