Whitney Biennial 2019

Floor 6

Born 1976 in New York, NY
Lives in Stockholm, Sweden

In Gyres 1-3, Ellie Ga explores the form of a gyre, a spiraling current on the ocean’s surface that circulates debris and throws it ashore. Ga’s narration interweaves seemingly disparate accounts and retellings, blending history, research, and autobiography. She encounters beachcombers who gather the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami in Japan; an oceanographer who studies the debris from container spills; and the histories of resistance, migration, and ritual offerings on the Greek islands of the Aegean Sea. Set to the cadence of her own voice, Ga slides transparent photographs onto one light table, and then swipes them towards another, creating a rhythm that echoes that of flotsam as it is washed ashore by the surf and then dragged away.