Better Off As a Ruin

Better off as a ruin is part of a larger body of work titled TOMB KEEPERS. It considers the contentious extractive practice of deep sea mining for polymetallic nodules (bundles of rare metals like copper, cobalt, and nickel that live on the ocean floor.) Some take as long as 500 million years to grow and are essential structures in the deep sea environment. We are mining them for use in solar cells, laptop and cellphone batteries and other technological devices. The work considers the complex web of relations that orbit the nodule: international seabed regulation, comb jelly ontologies, millennia of marine life and death, the green revolution, the constant upgrading of our devices, and the ocean’s role in climate change mitigation. It asks what origin stories are in the process of being created, and whose abyssal ghosts witness the destruction we incite.

Isabel Beavers
Isabel Beavers (they/she) is a transdisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles working in new media and installation. Their work addresses the climate crisis at the intersection of queerness, more-than-humans, spirituality, and technology. Beavers’ work has been presented, exhibited, and screened nationally and internationally. They hold an MFA from the SMFA at Tufts University and a BS from the University of Vermont. They were the 2021 AICAD/NOAA Fisheries Art + Science Fellow, 2022 Creative Impact Lab Amman Lead Artist with ZERO1. They are the Artistic Director of SUPERCOLLIDER LA and 2024-25 Hixon Riggs Early Career Fellow in STS At Harvey Mudd College.