Statement Cocoon Orchard, a new video installation by Erin Robinson Grant, confronts the viewer with the hardships of growth and change through the visceral event of emergent birth. Fruit-like creatures envelope themselves in threaded sap pulled from the trees. The creatures wrap themselves into large, tenuously hanging cocoons from which bloodied humanoids emerge and fall to the ground, taking root and grotesquely morphing into other trees, thereby perpetuating the cycle. Grant wishes to create an environment that is enticing yet abhorrent in terms of birth and death. In her own words: “With this installation, I want to invert the idea of transformation flowing from abhorrent to elegantly beautiful (for example, caterpillars changing to butterflies). Change is necessary and painful. As with birth, we are ejected into being covered in blood and menses and grow awkwardly and painfully into our fully formed selves, which perpetuates the cycle.”
Erin Robinson Grant is a new media artist currently residing in Portland, Oregon. www.erinrobinsongrant.com
