A room-scale ‘seabed’ built entirely from repurposed post-consumer materials — felted, hand-woven and eco-dyed fibre interbred with PET plastic. No resin: only textile, felt, embroidery and plastic.

It is an ironic comment on genetic adaptation under plastic pollution. As Professor Thorsten Reusch, of the Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity in Münster, has shown (2013), marine pollution can drive genomic drift — phenotypic mutations in subcellular systems — reducing biodiversity and threatening the extinction of species. Here the artist’s hand performs that mutation, interbreeding organic but industrially-processed fibres (linen, cotton, wool, silk) with artificial PET plastics.

The seabed was made as the ground for the suspended creatures of Aquatic Insurrection, with which it was shown at the Oliewenhuis Museum, Bloemfontein (2015). It was also exhibited at the Mogalakwena Gallery, Cape Town, in 2014.