Sixty Million Years Until Right Now is a time-based sculpture and sound performance created at the Missoula Art Museum.

The video above documents the construction of the work, the participatory sound performance, and the evolution of the sculpture over time.

I was interested in creating a sculpture with a lifespan—taking a material sixty million years in the making and transforming that material over a summer through a performance involving people and water.

Sixty Million Years Until Right Now plays with geologic and human time scales. I’m curious about what it feels like and what it means to transform something that took so long to create.

During the performance, visitors passed pitchers of water in a circle, taking a moment to pour water on the sculpture. When water is poured on coal, a wonderful sound emanates from the stones. Holding silence, everyone listened to the sound.
Coal is hydrophilic and acts like a sponge; after the performance the coal pulled in the salty water from the basin and salt crystals precipitated out onto the surface of the stones over several weeks.

This piece was an experiment and I am grateful to the Missoula Art Museum for their support every step of the way.