Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsberg | Exhibitions | USF CAM Contemporary Art Museum

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg

January 17 – March 7, 2020
USF Contemporary Art Museum, Lee and Victor Leavengood Gallery

Curated by Sarah Howard; organized by USF Contemporary Art Museum; and supported by a National Endowment for the Arts Art Works grant, a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Dr. Allen Root, and the USFCAM ACE Fund.

Hope Ginsburg and Sarah Howard's Bryde’s Whale and a Breathing Moon (2020) flag. Photo by Don Fuller.

Sponge Exchange expands artist Hope Ginsburg’s pedagogical platform using sea sponges and hard corals as a metaphor for exchange and the ecology of learning to stimulate social transformation. Diving into the local sponge culture of Tarpon Springs, Florida, known as “The Sponge Capital of the World,” Ginsburg’s new work explores past challenges to the local sponge industry, raises awareness and understanding of how the health of marine invertebrates is deeply tied to the environment and economic life of the region, and serves as a catalyst for imagining productive solutions for the future.

Sponge Exchange will premiere Ginsburg’s new video installation Swirling, created in collaboration with diver/videographer Matt Flowers and composer Joshua Quarles, and produced with support of the Wexner Center for the Arts Film/Video Studio Program. The four-channel video submerges viewers in the underwater coral nurseries and outplant sites of St. Croix, capturing the often unseen coral farming and reef restoration work that occurs beneath the surface.

Inspired by the idiosyncratic and educational dioramas of the Spongeorama Museum, which depict the rich history and culture of sponge-diving in Tarpon Springs, Florida, the exhibition will also feature a series of reimagined dioramas, created in collaboration with USF students. The three-dimensional dioramas will explore the issues related to climate change within Florida’s natural, cultural and economic ecologies.

OCEAN ARCHIVE

Hope Ginsburg and collaborator’s Coastarama has been included in the TBA21 Academy’s Ocean Archive digital platform. Created to stimulate action and policy change through collaboration and education, Ocean Archive fosters synergy among art, science and policy to make a range of perspectives visible, discoverable and understandable.

PRESS

02/19/2020 - Art for a Warming World: Sponge Exchange and FloodZone, By Antonia S. Krueger - Creative Pinellas

01/28/2020 - USF CAM solo exhibitions contribute to climate change conversation, By Julie Garisto - 83degrees

01/20/2020 - 'FloodZone' Captures South Florida's 'Climate Anxiety' In Unexpected Ways, By DANIEL RIVERO - WLRN Miami

01/17/2020 - 2 Artists Highlight Oceans In Crisis During USF Museum Exhibits, by D'Ann Lawrenc White - Patch.com

01/15/2020 - Environmental art exhibits open at the University of South Florida, by Maggie Duffy - Tampa Bay Times

01/13/2020 - USF Contemporary Art Museum takes on climate change with two new solo exhibitions, by SK West - Creative Loafing, Tampa

DOWNLOADS

Download Exhibition Brochure PDF

Download Press Release PDF

About Hope Ginsburg

Hope Ginsburg creates interdisciplinary projects which are invested in the socially transformative potential of knowledge exchange, and which build community around learning. Ginsburg’s work is driven by a curiosity about the natural world, its materials and the species with which we share the planet. Her ongoing projects are collaborative, cooperative, and participatory, often organized around live experiences for those directly involved, resulting in visual representations, objects, photography and videos. Ginsburg has exhibited nationally and internationally, at venues including MoMA PS1, MASS MoCA, Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU, Wexner Center for the Arts, Kunst-Werke Berlin, Contemporary Art Center Vilnius, Baltimore Museum of Art, SculptureCenter, and the Mercosul Biennial in Brazil. She is the recipient of an Art Matters Foundation Grant and a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship and has attended residencies such as the Robert Rauschenberg Residency, Skowhegan, the Wexner Film/Video Studio, and The Harbor at Beta Local. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Hyperallergic, and Artforum. Ginsburg is an Associate Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. Ginsburg received her BFA from Tyler School of Art and MS in Visual Studies from MIT.

Video Walkthrough

PANEL DISCUSSION VIDEO - Rising Above: Art and Climate Resiliency

Replay of the January 18, 2020 panel discussion, Rising Above: Art and Climate Resiliency, exploring new patterns for resiliency in the face of climate crisis. Panelists included artists Hope Ginsburg and Anastasia Samoylova; Ulrike Heine, PhD, Independent Curator and Visual Studies Scholar; CJ Reynolds, Director of Resiliency and Engagement, Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council; and Stephanie Wakefield, PhD, Urban Studies Foundation International Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Florida International University; Moderated by Sarah Howard, USF Curator of Public Art and Social Practice.

Installation Views

USFCAM façade with FloodZone: Anastasia Samoylova's Gator (2017/2020) from the FloodZone series and Hope Ginsburg and Sarah Howard's Bryde’s Whale and a Breathing Moon (2020) flag.

USFCAM façade with Anastasia Samoylova's Gator (2017/2020) installation from the FloodZone series, and Hope Ginsburg and Sarah Howard's Bryde’s Whale and a Breathing Moon (2020) flag. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Photo by Don Fuller

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Hope Ginsburg, Maxwell Parker, Natalia Kraviec and Luke Myers, Sponge Exchange Diving Helmet, 2020. Photo by Don Fuller.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Photo by Will Lytch

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Hope Ginsburg, Maxwell Parker, Natalia Kraviec and Luke Myers, Sponge Exchange Diving Helmet, 2020. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Photo by Will Lytch

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Hope Ginsburg, Matt Flowers and Joshua Quarles, Swirling, 2019. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Hope Ginsburg, Matt Flowers and Joshua Quarles, Swirling, 2019. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019-2020. The Coastorama Cooperative is Hope Ginsburg, John Byrd, Maxwell Parker and the students of the Fall 2019 USF Class Sponge Exchange. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019-2020. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Mackenzie Erickson and Samantha Redman, Sea Turtle: Sea Level Rise, from Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019-2020. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Leonardo Claudio, Jessie Saldivar and Marissa Snow Sea Snails: Ocean Acidification, from Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019-2020. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Hope Ginsburg, Maxwell Parker, Joshua Quarles* and Michael Royce*, Gulf of Mexico Bryde’s Whale: Endangered Species, from Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019-2020. * artist collaborators not part of the Sponge Exchange class. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Alex Lopez, James Ritman and James Wysolmierski, Lionfish: Invasive Species, from Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019-2020. Photo by Will Lytch.

See a clip of Lionfish: Invasive Species in action on CAM's YouTube channel.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019-2020. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Dalton Howard, Daniel Sulbaran and Alejandro Wolf, Smalltooth Sawfish: Endangered Species, from Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019-2020. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Jhen Lee and Andrew Ryan, Mangroves: Tropical Cyclones, from Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019-2020. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Veronica Brewster and Vivian Fisk, Manatee: Harmful Algal Blooms, from Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019-2020. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Ashley Rivers and Margherita Tibaldo, Corals: Ocean Warming, from Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019-2020. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Hope Ginsburg, Land Diver Certification Cards, 2014 –. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Sponge HQ archive materials 2006 - 2016. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Photo by Will Lytch.

Sponge Exchange: Hope Ginsburg installation at USFCAM, 2020. Hope Ginsburg, Sponge HQ Fins, 2013. Hope Ginsburg, Sponge HQ Mask and Snorkel, 2013. Hope Ginsburg with Jasmine Calvert and Jessica Carey, Sponge HQ Wetsuit, 2014. Photo by Will Lytch.

Land Dive Team: Tarpon Springs
Sunday, February 23, 2020

Land Dive Team: Tarpon Springs is the fourteenth performance in artist Hope Ginsburg's series of sited meditations that seek to stimulate attention and dialogue around the climate crisis, our relationship to it, and its impact on our lives and future. Located within the Tarpon Springs' Sponge Exchange, where sponges were historically traded, Land Dive Team: Tarpon Springs taps into the former function of the space as a site of exchange to stimulate social transformation.

Engaging trained participants meditating in scuba gear on land, the performance proposes the practice of present moment awareness. Accompanied by a live musical score integrating the breath of composer Joshua Quarles and the land divers into the amplified, immersive soundscape, Land Dive Team: Tarpon Springs invites audiences to participate in the meditative and collective breathing practice as a tool for coping with the mental and emotional challenges of living in a radically changing environment.

Land Dive Team: Tarpon Springs is a public program associated with Ginsburg's Sponge Exchange exhibition at the USFCAM, on view through March 7th, 2020 and is presented in partnership with The Sponge Exchange, Tarpon Strings Music and Turn the Tide for Tarpon.