Torsten Brinkema's "Preservation"
Artist Statement
This year's work was born from a culmination of lessons I learned in the creation of a wooden surfboard, visits to mid-coast Maine, and reckoning with a lineage of a titan in the sculpture world who didn’t care for people that weren’t his own— my Great(x3) uncle, Gutzon Borglum.
Something that I have always held close to heart is a symbiotic relationship with the natural world. Since my trek east, this relationship has been with Maine’s mid-coast shores. With each trip to surf or make films, I questioned this symbiosis, and the impact that my colonial ancestors had on lands that belonged to indigenous groups, like the Wabanaki people.
After shaping a surfboard from sustainably harvested Northern White Cedar, my journeys coastward became more frequent. I began to encounter massive beams of human-altered driftwood, washed up after an immeasurable amount of time at sea. Fascinated by the origin story of this wood, and who it was that cast this natural resource—now altered with chemicals and iron— into the ocean, I was eager to look inside them to uncover their story. This fascination became a direct connection to the questions of belonging I have about myself, a descendant of Gutzon Borglum, and if I truly can call a place like the shores of Maine, “Home.”
After months of filming on my Nizo super 8 camera, reflecting on wooden beams, and observing the so-called “preservation” that the state parks practiced on indigenous land, I questioned why these polluted pieces of wood continued to wash up on Maine’s shores. A collected reverence for these shores led me to my own ideas of preservation, as an invitation for viewers to look into the driftwoods story, my story, and wonder, do I really belong?
Materials Used
Driftwood, Epoxy
56x14x14 inches, 24x13x12 inches, 30x10x10 inches
Super 8 Film
Kodak Tri-X, recorded sounds