Made Ground
by Aly Ogasian, Shona Kitchen

Made Ground is a site-specific artwork on an artificial island in Mosquito Lagoon, within the boundaries of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. This island —ephemeral, shifting, and topographically reversed—exists in a liminal zone between wet and dry, public and private, terrestrial and aquatic, natural and engineered. Employing a “leave no trace” ethos and utilizing temporary architecture, the project proposes alternative models for human presence in the overlooked ecologies of Earth’s marginal zones—ones grounded in mobility, impermanence, and attunement to place. The project surfaces layered histories of terraforming in this region, from the construction of dunes to protect launchpads, to shell middens, to the digging of canals. Framed by the waning optimism of the space race and today’s climate and political uncertainties, the project reflects on human-made landscapes that are “spoiled" yet thriving. Blending moments of absurdity with a quiet sense of hope, Made Ground considers the persistence of life within an increasingly fragile world.

madeground@gmail.com

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