Wrack Zone
Wrack Zone explores the the shifting line where land and ocean meet, where tides and storms deposit fragments carried by the sea. Seaweed, driftwood, shells, ceramics, glass, and increasingly plastic accumulate here, forming both a physical boundary and a temporal one: a place where past, present, and future converge.
For millennia, humans have collected from coastlines. Archaeological evidence suggests that Neanderthals gathered shells not only for tools, but for the act of collecting itself. Today, this ancient gesture persists through beachcombing, yet it is profoundly altered by the presence of plastic.
Not all human-made materials behave the same. Glass, terracotta, and ceramics gradually erode and return to sand, re-entering natural cycles. Plastic, by contrast, fractures endlessly—into micro-, nano-, and picoplastics—without ever mineralizing. These particles now circulate invisibly through oceans, air, and bodies, blurring the boundary between environment and self.
This questions the border between the natural and the artificial, the impact of human production, and therefore the cycle of life and death : with all these fragments, wanted or unwanted— there is a return to land - just like when we die, our body returns to ashes and cosmos.
Just like a body that is sick expels that which it no longer desires or needs, the layers of objects hidden in the sand reflect the body memory of the planet, showing the relationship between land and ocean - a post-industrial materialistic cemetery that seems to demand new age offerings and rituals:
“Here, our relationship with Earth must become something like a kind of planetary demonism, a psychic transhumance that allows us to become and inhabit the soul of everything around us, as well as the opposite: to make the self the experience of the transhumance of all the demons of the planet”.
The works presented here reflect on this material difference. Fragments washed ashore become markers of geological and cultural time—potential technofossils embedded in future strata. If Earth is an Ego, a subject we are connected to, what do we want to leave in the sea, i.e. how do we consider it?
To capture these objects in states of transition, Elisa chose to work with the medium of Cyanotype, a 19th-century photographic process powered by sunlight and water. Its deep blue recalls the ocean, while its reliance on solar energy emphasizes low-impact, cyclical modes of making. The images register light, shadow, and form as fleeting impressions—echoing the slow transformation of materials and the fragile balance of marine life, much of it unseen.
The sea is not our home, but it is inseparable from it. What returns to shore is both a message and a mirror—revealing how intimately our material choices shape the world we inhabit.
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Number of pages: 36 pages
Number of images: 31 images
Number of words: 433 words
Languages: English & Japanese
Dimensions: A5
Publication date: 2023
Total number of copies: 30