Emily Jung Miller

I am excited to announce the launch of my Ghost Net Landscape project! I’ll be collaborating with visitors over four weeks at each gallery, transforming a massive pile of “ghost net” fishing rope waste into finished sculptures.

You. Me. 600 pounds of ghost net. Mark your calendars to join us if you can!

I’d love to have your help bringing this project to life! The Ghost Net Landscape is not possible without your support. You can:

1. Sponsor a basket
2. Bring me rope
3. Help transport the pile of rope
4. Come create artwork with us in the gallery!

1. Sponsor a basket!
Basket pre-order sponsorships will help fund the transportation and processing of materials, as well as artist fees. This project will occupy all my working hours for the months of May and October, and significant portions of time before and after. Click here to reserve a piece of the project now!

2. Bring me rope!
The exhibit can accommodate up to 600 pounds of rope (about 2 pickup trucks’ worth), so bring it on! Are you flying between Portland and Kauai with an extra suitcase? Surfrider Kauai would love to fill it up with rope (sealed in a clean bag, of course!). Are you able to start collecting rope on the northern Oregon coast? Or join me on March 23 for the Oregon SOLVE beach cleanup (and rope collection day!) Click here to get in touch and let me know!

3. Help transport the rope
Moving heavy things is so much easier with a group of people and a truck or two! I will most likely need to move the rope several times. Contact me if you can lend a hand!

• Westport, Washington to Beaverton around April 15
• Beaverton to Portland around April 30

The beginnings of an idea…

One year ago, I was on Kauai salvaging a suitcase worth of ghost net from a two-ton landscape made of trash. It was a surreal afternoon, climbing on a huge soft sculpture of marine waste, mountains and valleys created entirely from ghost net pulled off the beaches by Surfrider Kauai in just two months. By the time I had taken the rope home, unraveled and cleaned it, and stitched it into seven baskets, another five tons of ghost net had likely washed up on Kauai’s shores.

This experience made a deep impression on me. I had started making ghost net baskets three years earlier, and I knew the nets were one of the most abundant and dangerous sources of ocean trash. I knew that ghost net made up almost half the mass of the Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating, dispersed trash heap twice the size of Texas. None of this compared to being faced with the physical presence of the accumulated nets, which created an environment, a landscape, a powerful ecosystem that I could touch, surrounding me on all sides.

It was also fun climbing on the pile of ghost net. After years in the ocean, the rope was still bright and colorful, more like buried treasure than hazardous waste. Wind and waves had softened different pieces into fuzzy, knotted sculptures in their own right. If I found no joy in making this artwork, I could not continue to create it – despite the ambivalence of experiencing that joy.

Sharing all this was the natural next step. I envisioned the massive pile in a pristine gallery space, where its weight could be considered as a sculptural, cultural object. Working in the gallery also pushes directly against the idea of art as precious and untouchable. Throughout the exhibit, I’ll be leading visitors in pulling apart the nets to be transformed into finished sculptures.

Our daily work in the gallery will be documented as a time-lapse video. How many collaborators, spending how many hours, are able to process how much rope? How many finished sculptures can be made? At the close of the exhibit, how much is still left unused – and what happens to it next?

I’ll be continuing my partnership with Surfrider Kauai as a source of raw materials, and I hope to partner with Oregon beach cleanup groups as well. I’ll be sharing regular updates as I gather materials, confirm partnerships, and start work on new designs!