Cause & Affection: A Water Quality of Life

In Summer 2024, Oika ecologist Dr. Rich Blundell helped the Maria Mitchell Association and the Great Harbor Yacht Club Foundation deploy a state-of-the-art oceanographic buoy to measure key water-quality metrics in Nantucket Harbor. On the same day, he also deployed a second sensor, the artist, Rita Leduc. This human one was tuned to the aesthetic and affective dimensions of the eelgrass ecosystem. 

While the buoy continuously measures water quality, Rita measured the harbor with her own sensory modalities. Through Oika Research, she collected visual data that reflected the many sensations of relationality she felt at different levels from the sea floor. The resulting artwork manifests her developing relationship with an ever-expanding ecosystem: the harbor, the eelgrass ecosystem, Rich, the buoy, the island community. 

Meanwhile, Rich continued his lifelong relationship with eelgrass: as a child, a commercial fisherman, a scientist, an earthling. More than stewarding the buoy and Rita, Rich immersed himself in the eelgrass' familiar fronds, filling up with their affection. Through science and story, Rich shares what it is to not just know but to be in deep, reciprocal relationship with eelgrass.

The visual and verbal communication from Cause & Affection: A Water Quality of Life expresses Rich and Rita’s transformations of cause into affection, revealing a positive correlation between the health of the harbor and the health of our human condition.