Watch Us Vanish

Exhibit 315, Nova Scotia Centre for Craft and Design, 1096 Marginal Road

The average right whale weighs between 54 and 72 tonnes; at Nocturne you’ll be given a pound of clay to make your own. It’s not much, but it’s what Andrea Puszkar and Marla Benton landed on as a tribute to the endangered mammals who have been dying mysterious deaths in nearby waters.

“There’s nothing we can do,” says Puszkar, a ceramics artist and teacher. “There are other issues out there, and there are ways I can get involved, but this one feels really tricky. I’m not going to go rescue the whales myself. Our hands our tied. Not that this little art project means we’re going to solve it, but we want the people who are rescuing whales know they are not being forgotten.”

At press time the duo was still gathering clay donations, the idea being that Nocturne participants mold their own right whales—free-form or with a provided linoprint—and then instead of firing them, the whales will be placed on the waterfront boardwalk in front of the Emera building. “We’ll let them disappear on their own, whether they disintegrate or are taken,” says Puszkar.

“The watching component is how I feel…we’re just standing back and watching them vanish.”