A January–March 2020 exhibition at USF Contemporary Art Museum, curated by Sarah Howard and supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Sponge Exchange focused on ecology and knowledge transfer in two new collaboratively-produced video and sculpture installations. Swirling, a four-channel video made with Matt Flowers and Joshua Quarles, surrounded viewers with projections of underwater coral restoration. Coastorama examined the coastal climate crisis and its most impacted species and was inspired by the idiosyncratic sponge-diving dioramas of Spongeorama in Tarpon Springs. Coastorama was made with USF School of Art and Art History students in the Sponge Exchange class, co-taught with John Byrd. All projects in the exhibition were entirely collaborative, proposing the ecological premise of sharing of resources, ideas, and opportunities.
Left: Hope Ginsburg, Matt Flowers, Joshua Quarles, Swirling, 2019
Right: Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019–2020
Hope Ginsburg, Matt Flowers, Joshua Quarles, Swirling, 2019
Hope Ginsburg, Matt Flowers, Joshua Quarles, Swirling, 2019
Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019–2020
Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019–2020
Leonardo Claudio, Jessie Saldivar, Marissa Snow, Sea Snails: Ocean Acidification
Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019–2020
Leonardo Claudio, Jessie Saldivar, Marissa Snow, Sea Snails: Ocean Acidification
Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019–2020
Hope Ginsburg, Michael Royce, Joshua Quarles, Maxwell Parker, Gulf of Mexico Bryde's Whale: Endangered Species
Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019–2020
Veronica Brewster and Vivian Fisk, Manatee: Harmful Algal Blooms
Coastorama Cooperative, Coastorama, 2019–2020
Ashley Rivers and Margherita Tibaldo, Corals: Ocean Warming
Hope Ginsburg, Maxwell Parker, Natalia Kraviec, Luke Myers, Sponge Exchange Diving Helmet, 2020
Sponge HQ (2010–2016) and Land Dive Team (2014–2020) archives with Breath Portraits (2016), Sponge HQ Wetsuit (2014), Land Diver Certification Cards (2014–2020), and Land Dive Team: Amphibious James (2018) documentary
Sponge HQ (2010–2016) archive
Hope Ginsburg and Sarah Howard, Bryde's Whale and a Breathing Moon, 2020
Hope Ginsburg and Joshua Quarles, Land Dive Team: Tarpon Springs, 2020