Long Time No Ocean

by Lynn Sullivan    |   Ecologies: Trash, Toxicity, Transmission, Issue 3 (2014)

ABSTRACT     Words on flagging banners are cut out, with letters left hanging; phrases like “Long Time No Ocean” become difficult to read. Language here functions in dual ways as both a communicative tool and an evocative form. In the absence, concealment, or constant rebuilding, a space opens up for a shift of meaning and it is this moment of shift that I am particularly interested in.

KEYWORDS      language, meaning, ocean, words

Within my works, narrative seems to slip out of grasp in forms full of erasures, excisions, and obscurations.

Words on flagging banners are cut out, with letters left hanging; phrases like “Long Time No Ocean” become difficult to read. Language here functions in dual ways as both a communicative tool and an evocative form. In the absence, concealment, or constant rebuilding, a space opens up for a shift of meaning and it is this moment of shift that I am particularly interested in.

[This article was originally published at http://lateral.culturalstudiesassociation.org/issue3/ecologies/sullivan. A PDF the original version has been archived at https://archive.org/details/Lateral3.]

Author Information

Lynn Sullivan

\Lynn Sullivan is an artist working with sculpture, video, sound and public actions. Her works present social and psychological symbols that are emerging or disappearing in cultural confusion. Her work has been exhibited innumerous spaces ranging from Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles to the University of Utah to New York’s non-profit Smack Mellon. Her recent projects include a large-scale sculpture installed for “Real on Rock Street” in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood; she will present a soloexhibition of folded and formed digital prints at Fordham University in the fall. Sullivan holds a BA in Cultural History from Cornell University and an MFA in Combined Media from Hunter College, where she teaches as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Art and Art History.\