Hope Ginsburg, Matt Flowers, Joshua Quarles

Swirling captures the processes of underwater coral farming and reef restoration and brings them to viewers in vignettes highlighting human ingenuity and folly in the face of catastrophic climate change. The piece was shot on location in the coral nurseries and outplant sites of The Nature Conservancy in the Caribbean in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands and takes its name from one of the shooting sites “Swirling Reef of Death” – as well as the “swirling” of factors that will determine the unknown outcome of the coral restoration narrative. Swirling proposes laboring with other species, in this case communities of hard corals, for our shared survival.