Melanie Colosimo

Sync or Swim 2021
Site-specific installation / Installation in situ
Site 24 – Cove / Anse, Champney’s West

In Sync or Swim Melanie Colosimo delves into the ongoing socio-economic challenges of Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland) specifically and the Atlantic Canada region generally: an aging population, out-migration and decaying infrastructure, with the decline of key industries such as fishing as catalyst. Colosimo is deeply engaged with the region and persistently interested in the ways that community perseveres in the face of crisis. 

In this work, Colosimo highlights the paradoxes of globalized capitalism on the peninsula. Rural fishing communities in Atlantic Canada feed distant markets from their oceans while they suffer from food insecurity and declining natural resources, caused in part by global trade maintained by modes of resource extraction that preclude community and environmental stewardship. Adapting and customizing industrial materials through hand-fabricated processes, Colosimo deploys the material language of the bright red-orange life preservers, combined with reflective materials, to crowd a repurposed fish plant tub with interlocking floatation devices. The sheer number and density of the ringed preservers force them below the surface, causing the tub to overflow. Staying afloat in this quagmire is a hopeless Sisyphean task. 

The material ingenuity and playfulness of Colosimo’s work resonate with the specific context of Champney’s West, a community that has persevered through collaboration and care for the natural resources that sustain us. In the process of preparing this site-responsive installation, and with support from artist Greg Bennett, Colosimo worked closely with the site at Champney’s West Aquarium, drawing upon community expertise and material to realize the project. 

MH