Organic cotton and hemp dyed with marigolds, madder, alkanet, logwood, lac, indigo, and pomegranates. Potato dextrose agar, coffee grounds, nutritional yeast, inoculated with pleurotus ostreatus and cladosporium cladosporioides fungal species, and embroidered text.

may we decompose violence in ourselves before we ask it of the world, is an artwork that gestures towards the bio/myco-remediation of toxic dust settled within the sediment of the Great Salt Lake. This artwork offers a reminder that toxic transformation is indeed possible, by emphasizing the potentials of transdisciplinary collaboration with multi-species as well as through science, art, and healing. However, the work acknowledges that before we (humans) lean into any multi-species remediation, we must first repair/decompose/make-into-nutrient the root causes of the issues: greed, human solipsism, and pervading myths of the “individual”. If we do not activate this work in parallel to bioremediation, we will only continue to feed the forces of violence.

Bryson’s seven-foot long, naturally dyed, quilted textile depicts the light signature of arsenic, one of the harmful heavy metals found in the soil of the Great Salt Lake. A light signature is the unique and specific frequency of light emitted or absorbed by an element when heated, which is illustrated by bands of colors visible across the spectrum of light. The quilted textile is inoculated with two species of fungi (Pleurotus ostreatus and Cladosporium cladosporioides) both capable of facilitating transformation/sequestration of arsenic into their biomass when combined with native plants in succession-driven bioremediation. This means that bioremediation is not done in singularity, no single species is ever taking the burden, rather it is always treated as a community effort sharing and distributing resources. As the quilt ages and the representation of arsenic’s light signature is visually altered by the growth/consumption of the fungi, making visible a contemporary alchemical ritual of transformation and healing.

The words embroidered onto the textiles are prayers meant to feed the fungi as they consume the textile in preparation for their work ahead. The words are supplemental nutrients offered to strengthen them and to acknowledge what we have done. These words come from the powerful voice of Brontë Velez, created as mantra to open space for restorative environmental and social justice-oriented actions. Within our practices of change and reparation, may we always offer prayers as starting point and nutrients to orient our work.

This work is created through the many hands of collaboration. Thank you to Brontë Velez for offering their words as food. Thank you to Kalyn Mae Finnell for your help making a rainbow through the biochemistry of natural dyes. Thank you to Danielle Stevenson whose scientific research on bioremediation and ecotoxicology have (informed this work) and paved the way for accessible, contemporary land applications of bioremediation. And thank you to the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art and Jared Steffensen for creating the space for this work and this important and timely exhibition.