'Splat In The Verd' by Collision’s Craft for Sinkhole Project, Baltimore

The train passes 26th St. heading northeast at 7:24 am. We have been recording every time we hear the train pass, creating a schedule that marks our days and nights, making something that was once just a white noise less invisible.

We have been thinking about this thing called a whale fall, where a dead whale falls to the ocean floor, creating an outward spiral of energy as it decomposes, forming and feeding an aquatic ecosystem for years. The dispersal of this whale energy takes the form of a complex ecological web, an invisible structure, which includes thousands of living organisms within one whole. Ornamentation is the manifestation of this invisible structure, a biological language of growth, in which reconfiguration and options are the essence.

When a whale falls, ornamentation begins by visualizing the structure of decisions. With each possibility of a decision, a node forms. The node is the anchor point from which both options branch off and growth continues its spiral. Each organism that encounters the whale and takes a bite becomes one node within this network of energy flow, continuing the potential for movement.

Back in April of 2014, an excess of water from a heavy rain storm eroded the soil along the train tracks below 26th street in Baltimore, MD, creating a sinkhole that collapsed the street onto the railway. Two parallel paths colliding- bringing the once invisible structure into focus and upsetting two human networks of travel/capital. Much like the whale fall, this act of material reconfiguration creates a potential for energy to move in new ways, visualized as ornamentation, inspiring Sinkhole Project, who invited us to bring work into this spot.