Susannah Mira

This installation incorporates thousands of discarded sheets of microfiche film, creating a physical metaphor reflecting the role of information disclosures in our world today. As with my overall body of work, Data Breach utilizes salvaged materials, which in this case, includes records of congressional documents de-accessioned from a library during migration to digital access.

Prior to pursuing art I went to library school, so even before the internet changed life as we know it, I'd been exposed to thinking about how information access and collection shapes our world.

Placed in the Art League Houston garden, the work inserts data carriers into the same context as nature, commenting on the pervasiveness of information technology and the information economy in our everyday lives.

On view November 16, 2018 - January 12, 2019.

Installed on the 1700 block of Heights Boulevard in Houston, Texas as a part of the 2018 Art on the Boulevard program

Safety Yellow brings together nearly 1600 plastic units salvaged from the local oil & gas industry during its recent downturn, forming a bold pattern with elements that may have once protected submerged cable. On the surface, the installation refers to common motifs in decorative arts and architecture across cultures. The piece also offers passers-by a site of conversion: instead of removing resources from the earth, this configuration of energy industry components contributes to a different kind of power production—the creative process.

images © Paul Hester

discarded air filters, dimensions variable

This installation employs the metal mesh of used air filters. The work incorporates the brash palette used to designate various workplace hazards as a metaphor for the need to remain conscious of environmental issues, especially in a political landscape that diminishes their importance.

photographs © Paul Hester

A re-imagined installation connects nearly three thousand salvaged plastic display hooks into numerous islands, evoking the global trajectories raw materials make to empower cheap production.

*This project was funded by a grant from the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance. 

photographs © Paul Hester

Connecting nearly three thousand salvaged plastic display hooks into a giant constellation evokes the global trajectories raw materials make to empower cheap production.

*This project was funded by a grant from the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.

photographs © Paul Hester

neoprene foam, wire
dimensions variable

This work was created and installed on the property of Taliesin West, while a visiting artist at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. Students here have the opportunity to design and build desert shelters as part of their education, which in part inspired the piece.

An album of snapshots from the residency is online here.

pool wall foam, monofilament
48 x 12 x 12 x inches

This piece is a personal water storage unit, woven from discs cut out of the polyethylene foam used to line swimming pools. It suggests a time when specialized materials and accessories are employed for common daily use.

I made Water Tower while doing an artist residency in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, a dusty spa town on the Rio Grande in the southern part of the state. The high mineral content in the water there makes it perfect for soaking, though not a tasty drink, so every day I'd visit the reverse osmosis station in the shopping center up the street and haul back a couple of gallons. I conceived of this piece during one of those walks. Pictures of town and a few southwestern roadtrips are here.

piano hammers, wire
8 x 4 inches

Once the hallmark of a middle class home, today the majority of unwanted pianos end up in landfills. The city of Fort Collins, Colorado uses donated instruments in its ‘Pianos About Town’ public art program, which places them outdoors for the public to play. Periodically, the instruments are swapped out, which supplied me with a set of deaccessioned parts.

Sorting through a pile of pieces reminded me of an incident from my youth, when I was resistantly learning how to play. Increasingly frustrated, during one practice I remember leaning forward and biting the soft wood of the fallboard.

My design is based on necklaces made of animal teeth, used in different cultures for adornment, barter, and as status symbols. On a personal level, the work represents an overdue and unexpected mastery of the instrument.

cotton, wire / 13 x 3 x 3 feet

This work utilizes 100 pounds of raw cotton — grown, sourced, and discarded close to my former studio near the U.S.-Mexico border. Since the passage of NAFTA more than a million Mexican farmers have lost their land due to the market saturation of U.S. cotton and other crops, driving prices for these goods below the cost of production. In addition, cotton uses an enormous amount of pesticides in the production process, with by-products entering the human food supply through use in cattle feed and as a filler in processed foods.

as installed at the Luleå Art Biennial – Luleå, Sweden
PVC pipe, copolymer fabric, air-purifying plants
12 x 12 x 11 feet

This piece responds to the issue of environmental risk, particularly disaster preparedness.

The dome is an innately sturdy structure, able to withstand natural stresses of many kinds. It also refers to the work of architect Buckminster Fuller, who saw it as a key to rethinking housing and a restructured way of life. In addition, the promise of a contained habitat draws from the work of Biosphere 2, the sealed capsule environment in the Arizona desert where biological life support experiments were staged in the early 1990s.

The plants housed within the dome allude to the idea that the natural world provides keys to many modern dilemmas and likewise, each specimen is good at removing a particular chemical from the air. Examples include benzene and formaldehyde. The latter made news as the toxin found in the trailers provided to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

leaf mulch, nylons
5 x 15 x 4 feet

A cocoon-like dwelling made of fallen autumn leaves in the home of Arbor Day – Nebraska City, Nebraska.

I was on residency at Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts while I made this work. Images made on walks around town are here.

Latex and neoprene housecleaning gloves
3 x 10 x 6 feet

Constructed out of synthetic materials known for their use in industrial and so-called lifestyle accessories, this structure serves as an alternative shelter in the Colorado mountains, known as a hub of adventure tourism and vacation cabins.

Colorado Art Ranch was the now discontinued residency program this work emerged from. Images of a few highway mountain views are here.

elastic bandages, straw
dimensions variable

This piece is an adaptable, personal shelter, made from stuffed bandage tubes. An interest in invented textiles (the original all cotton elastic bandage was introduced commercially in 1913), hand built shelter, and the housing bubble all spurred the work.

I built this work while in residence atOx-bow School of Art and Artists' Residency. A couple of photos of our idyllic Saugatuck surrounds are here.

as installed at Elsewhere Artist Collaborative / Greensboro, NC
denim, scrap fabric / 8 x 10 x 12 feet

This work developed in response to a unique residency program in which artists are invited to redistribute resources of an eclectic collection of a former thrift and surplus store. Working within a closed system—nothing leaves the collection and nothing is added—this structure offers a clearing in a densely arranged spatial environment. In addition, it doubles as a waste containment initiative, as each log is stuffed with otherwise unusable scrap fabric. Denim as a symbol of innovation and reinvention as well as the significance of that industry locally in Greensboro were among the many inspirations for the piece.

Structures were on my mind as I walked around town, as evidenced by my photo journal here.