Why Plankton?

While researching earth’s ecosystems, I was first drawn to plankton for their seemingly eternal presence throughout earth’s history, appearing over 500 million years before humans. Plankton produce over half of earth’s oxygen; every other breath we take is credited to plankton. They are essential to the food chain, and other elemental cycles.

Plankton are tiny, unassuming, and effectively invisible to the average person – even their movement is at the mercy of the waves. Plankton are classified by their inability to swim against the current. (Their name is derived from the Greek adjective πλαγκτός (planktos), meaning wanderer or drifter.) They float outside our awareness, but hold great power over life on earth. All animals on earth today, including us, depend on plankton to survive.

Of course, plankton aren’t immune to the effects of human-caused climate change and pollution. To ignore their well-being is to ignore our own. (Further, environmental crises disproportionately affect people of color, as well as people living in poverty!)

For all these reasons––not to mention the visual power of their forms––I was inspired to make work about plankton.

For a look into the inner world of plankton, listen to Radiolab’s short audio piece, A War We Need.

Further reading on environmental racism:

The landmark national study, Toxic Waste and Race in the United States of America (1987), statistically revealed the correlation between race and the location of toxic waste throughout the United States. The study was conducted and published by Dr. Benjamin Chavis, executive director of the United Church of Christ (UCC) Commission for Racial Justice.
Six years before he conducted the national study, Dr. Chavis was outspoken about the dumping of hazardous polychlorinated biphenyl waste in Warren County, North Carolina. The community in Warren was 66% black, and 90% of the black population lived under the poverty level.