Claire Frances Spaulding 2025

Abstract

How do I face the material reality of a studio practice balanced against a theoretical framework centered upon environmental criticism and affect theory? What does it mean to coexist in an ecology of plastic as contributor, as collaborator? A combination of found and new material, Doing Despite explores material flirtation to utilize kitsch and fem aesthetics as a hyper visual language. The compositional elements are inspired by oceanography, topographical striations, and geometric patterns – a blue wave recedes and ascends from sandy, scalloped edge’s reminiscent of Americana pomp and circumstance. An amalgamation of synthetic and natural fibers, the work represents a convergence of ecology and new materialism: “ecodread”. “Ecodread” is a sensitizing concept of cognitive dissonance and ecological affect. It is the tension between social expectations of sustainability and subjective material engagements: the discomfort between a desire to exist in the world as eco-conscious as possible against a reality where the expense of those decisions is not attainable. Working through the dissonance and dread, the climate crisis is faced with a “doing despite” mentality rather than anxious paralysis. Polyethylene terephthalate – it’s what persists long after objects are discarded, disintegrated into microplastics, or smashed together as a conglomerate of mineral, media, and matter. Plastic was a promise of infinite potentiality, of endless supply for a demand of clear, synthetic, reflective, durable objects meant to last a lifetime. But whose lifetime? Ours or polymers? Material or mineral? Doing Despite works through the dissonance to consider an ecological futurity where matter and audience embrace the entanglement of vibrant plasticity. Doing Despite is a visual compliment to the theoretical framework and qualitative research undertaken in my MA Critical Studies Thesis: “Ecodread: Dissonance, Material, and Ecology within Creative Practice.” This project positions ecodread into the fields of new materialism and environmental criticism as an offering and proposal that the personal, the self is able to reenter the rhetoric on impact and futurity.