In ABUNDANCE (Red Algae), multimedia artist Courtney Leonard associates the fragility of fired clay with the fragility of the environment. It is part of her ongoing multiyear project BREACH, which explores her Indigenous coastal people’s history in relation to contemporary concerns about climate change and access to resources. Through BREACH, Leonard asks: “How can a culture sustain itself when it no longer has access to the environment that fashions that culture?”
A member of the Shinnecock Nation, Leonard grew up on a reservation on the east end of Long Island, New York. ABUNDANCE (Red Algae) is one of a series of ceramic works that respond to ecological crises affecting Indigenous communities and their relationships to water. The ironic title contrasts the abundance of natural resources in the pre-contact period fostered by traditional practices of cultivation with a new abundance of toxic algae associated with the impacts of industrial farming methods. The dense and rapid growth, or “blooms,” of certain species of harmful algae are sustained by nitrogen-rich agricultural runoff, poisoning fish and depriving native aquatic plants of light. The sculpture was created in the wake of massive fish die-off that Leonard additionally attributes to the surrounding town’s failure to understand and anticipate the impact of lunar cycles on the environment. Its form, inspired by Indigenous fish baskets, was created by twining long rolls of clay into a netlike structure. The medium, however, renders the basket rigid and brittle. This quotation of a functional design using impractical materials is intended as a warning. The red glaze references the devastating algae identified in the title.
Learn more about the work and Leonard’s practice through the video Artist Portrait: Courtney M. Leonard (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7zpJxs3nCU), produced by LACMA in conjunction with the 2022 exhibition Conversing in Clay: Ceramics from the LACMA Collection.
Rosie Mills-Helterbran
2019, revised by Staci Steinberger 2024
