Unionidae

Adrien Segal created this new series of site specific collaborative artworks with Pittsburgh artists Daniel Brockett and Julian Maturino in response to climate issues affecting the Allegheny River, freshwater mussel extinction, and Pittsburgh’s legacy as a center of industrialization in America.

The title of the work references the scientific classification of freshwater mussels. Over time, extensive habitat degradation in the Allegheny River has significantly lowered the number of species of mussels in the river, endangering many and threatening extinction. Segal and Maturino worked to create glass vessels that were blown using willow baskets woven by Brockett as molds, and embedded with oxides derived from Acid Mine Drainage.

Using the texture of the woven willow to form the glass work acts as a way to work with locally sourced materials and consider how materials translate and imprint as they are skillfully worked by hand, resulting in artifacts that embody a story about the complex history of human culture and its lasting impacts on the natural environment.

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“Environments are constituted in life, not just in thought, and it is only because we live in an environment that we can think at all.”
Tim Ingold, The Perception of the Environment: Essays on livelihood, dwelling, and skill