Mallory Zondag
What Will Become of Us
March 27 – June 6, 2021
This collection of work from Mallory Zondag, spanning 2018 to 2021 reflects on a question that constantly informs her practice, “What will become of us?”
“Nature is no longer only a remote peak shining in the sun or a raptor hunting over birch woods, it is also tidelines thickened with drift plastic or methane clathrates decomposing over millions of square miles of warming permafrost. This new nature entangles us in ways we are only beginning to comprehend.” - Rob McFarlane. Underland
Our influence on the natural world is no longer a question, but a fact. We live in the Anthropocene age, an age defined as “The period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.” We cannot separate ourselves from nature or think of the human world and the natural world as separate spheres that occasionally overlap where we see fit. We are inextricably entangled and enmeshed, there is no turning back.
Our impact on this planet can never be undone, but we too easily forget that human existence on this earth is neither permanent or enshrined. We have not always existed on this planet and it’s possible we will not always remain, but nature and our impact on it will. In some form or another, as single cells, as rock consuming lichen, as communicating mycelium, as communal trees or ever adapting animals, life continues on with or without us. We will be gone one day and I continually wonder, then, what will remain?
The questions I sculpt my work from are these; What does the natural world look like when we are gone? What does our legacy of pollution and waste look like once it has had time to heal and reclaim? What do our bodies become when they are being reclaimed by the earth’s continuous cycles of growth and decay, what is our place in this cycle and why do we insist on destroying it? I have no answers, only interpretations, no concrete statements, only felted and fibrous love notes for our planet. Infused in these is a small plea for our collective humanity to see past our preconceived notions about nature and our place within the world to an honest view of our impact on it, our destruction of it and the tenacity of a world that will continue on with, or without us.
A Disappearance of Bees
recycled fibers, wool, cotton, silk, gold leaf, beeswax, cellulose.
8" x 18" (6 frames) 11" x 18" (3 frames)
2021
$350 per small frame. $450 per large frame
Friend
wool, cotton, beeswax.
41" x 77"
2020
$8,000
Consumed
wool, cotton, glass beads, silicone, acrylic paint.
5" x 8"
2021
$300
We Spill Out no.1
wool, cotton, silk, acrylic paint, silicone
22" x 70"
2020
$1200
Consume the Forest
acrylic, wool, silk, cotton, latex paint.
16" x 61"
2021
$950
Ocean of Oil
recycled plastic, latex paint
10" x 20" x 47"
2021
$500
Body Polluted
wool, recycled plastic, cotton, beeswax, silicone
4" x 11" x 19"
2021
$450
A Mask For Eddie
wool, beeswax, moss, shelf mushrooms, silk
6” x 11” 2018
NFS
Forest Floor no. 2
wool, cotton, silk, hemp. 14" x 29"
2018
$1,200
Order of Growth
wool, silk, moss, oyster shells
16" x 32" Four panels total
2018
$600 per panel
Fighting to Breathe Free
wool
19" x 26", 23" x 24", 22" x 27" series of three lungs
2020
$750 each
Fighting to Breathe Free is a series that was created in summer of 2020 after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. I felted these lungs during the protests, amidst my own learning and unlearning and a personal and national reckoning with race and white privilege. These lungs are representations of the insidious forms of systemic racism that continues to harm and to kill Black, Indigenous and Latinx peoples today.
The decision of corporations to build their petrochemical factories along the stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, where residents are predominantly Black, is environmental racism. That Mississippi River stretch is now known as Cancer Alley due to the spewing of carcinogenic particulates into the air which in turn continue to raise cancer rates. The decision to build factory farms that spray animal waste into the air and enter the lungs of the surrounding communities of color and deteriorate their health is another ugly face of environmental racism. The Dakota Access pipeline being rerouted from the majority white Bismarck, North Dakota instead through the reservation and the sacred sites of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe was an act of environmental racism.
Police brutality and an unjust, racially skewed criminal justice system is a form of systemic racism. A system designed to take Black lives through punitive sentencing laws called mandatory minimums that were established during the war on drugs. This evolution of the criminal justice system was named by Michele Alexander as the New Jim Crow. These reforms are now seen as a backlash to the civil rights movement. Legal raids and no knock warrants were codified in the war on drugs, taking place in predominantly Black neighborhoods while systematically ignoring drug use in the white suburbs. A misinformed drug raid is what killed Breonna Taylor. Police stops of Black people turn violent and deadly in this country with devastating regularity. Black people make up 28% of all deaths by police, while only making up 13% of the population. A stop for an alleged counterfeit twenty dollar bill ended in the killing of George Floyd.
The disproportionate number of Covid deaths in Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other communities of color are the result of multiple forms of systemic racism compounding into tragic losses. The discrimination faced when seeking medical treatment, a higher rate of underlying conditions from the consequences of environmental racism as well as inequities in access to quality healthcare and the high rate of jobs in essential, in-person work with no work from home option, which can be attributed to the inequities in access to high quality education are all different sides of the same, intentional, systematic racism that has resulted in Black people dying from Covid at 1.4 times the rate of white people.
Systemic racism was built into the very bones of this country. The land stolen from Indigenous tribes, the first African peoples sold to the colonies in 1619 and the racist myths created to justify and perpetuate the system of slavery. Racism was foundational in the institutions that built this country, capitalism, education, healthcare, housing, jobs and culture. It has since evolved and adapted with us to the point that it flows through our country as easily as the air we breathe, and to those who chose not to look or confront history or their own privilege, just as invisible. This heinous deformity cannot be ignored, nor can we consider its central role in our lives, as simple coincidence. Racism is structural, and intentional and must be seen honestly in order to be rooted out of every aspect of our society. America will never live up to the founding promise of our nation until every person can truly breathe free.
All of the artists proceeds from the sale of the series Fighting to Breathe Free will be donated to the local organization Afros in Nature and the NAACP of Allentown.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Mallory Zondag is a Mixed Media Fiber artist. She graduated from Pratt Institute with honors, a BFA in Fashion Design and a minor in Art History. While at Pratt she focused on creating handmade one of a kind textiles for her collections. Since graduating, she has built a career as an independent artist and arts educator. Her work involves felting, dyeing, weaving and other mixed media fiber practices to create sculptural wall hangings and installations. The growth and decay of the natural world, the duality of discomfort and attraction we feel towards it and humanity's place within this dichotomy informs her creations of dimensional textures and sculptural pieces.
Mallory shares her passion for handmade one of a kind textiles through various educational programs and residencies. Many of these programs involve a collaborative element where the entire school works together on a single project. These programs bring an exciting and hands on artistic experience to the students as well as emphasizing community and collaboration through art.
Previous community work has included creating a fiber living wall with 500 elementary students in Easton, PA where students learned about fiber art, sustainability and worked together to create the leaves and flowers of the living wall. Another recent project involved weaving a twenty foot mural from recycled tshirts during a community arts festival. Most recently, Mallory created a mixed media fiber art installation for The Allentown Art Musuem’s Artways. The installation looks at the structures of racial inequality in America through the metaphorical lense of nature. Mallory creates decorative textile wall pieces and moments of nature made from a variety of sustainable fibers in her studio when she isn’t involved in one of her many community art projects.
Mallory has exhibited in galleries, participated in artist festivals, residencies and collective shows in New York and Pennsylvania.
Mallory will be completing several artist residency programs with ArtsQuest during the Spring of 2021, including programs at the Jacobsburg Environmental Education Center, Jewish Day School of the Lehigh Valley, and in the Wilson Area School District with the following schools: Williams Township School, Avona Elementary School, and Wilson Elementary School. Find out more about ArtsQuest's Education and Outreach programs here.
www.mallorymakes.com Instagram: @badwolf124
