Ballast Bench is a hybrid artwork and research instrument…

Somewhere between a marine science laboratory bench, a rocking chair, a waterbed, and the hold of a cargo ship, Ballast Bench, doubles as an observation tank housing an experimental study of Undaria’s growth. Roughly the size of a laboratory work table, the Ballast Bench borrows its hybrid form from the laboratory bench and the ballast tank. The benchtop opens to reveal four chambers containing incubators that house experimental and control samples of seawater inoculated with hundreds of Undaria sporophytes and gametophytes. This watery cargo is a simulated liquid ballast and a medium for an experimental study of the microscopic stages of Undaria over the temporal course of an ocean crossing ship’s passage, a timespan that is clocked, many times over in the case of the installation at Birch, within the duration of an art exhibition.

When visitors sit atop and rock the bench back and forth, they mimic a ship's pitch and roll, making waves inside a concealed world. Bench sitters are passengers of a marine scientific experiment through which the survival and reproduction rates of tiny invasive algae spores under these ballast tank conditions are monitored and tracked in a scientific analysis that cross-references the survival and growth of Undaria inside the bench with those out in the field, at coastal sites and within the dark holds of cargo ships. In Winter and Spring 2025, marine ecologist, and Passengers of Change collaborator Danielle McHaskell will conduct experiments using Ballast Bench, in situ, at the aquarium.