Are we psychic coral-polyps?

Coral reefs are the cornerstone of our global ecosystem. A group of individual coral polyps make up an entire colony, acting as a single organism. This thinking is analogous to understanding that we as individuals each have a role in our larger web of life. The form of this work is inspired by an individual coral polyp and the intricate ways that everything around us is interconnected. Bringing the micro scale of coral polyp, which is about the size of an ant, to an architectural scale of 16 tall by 20 feet wide, inverts our normal human relationship to this microverse. It is hand built of sustainably sourced local wood finished with natural pigments and binders. Rising temperatures due to climate change in the last decades are endangering this fragile ecosystem. The coral’s cooperative mode of thriving–a colony of many individual polyps together acting as a united creature–is a potential model for collectivity and action against climate change.

Are we, as HD wondered in her 1956 ‘Tribute to Freud’, psychic coral-polyps building one upon another? What is the individual polyp in this case, the singular, the monad? And will we leave our polyp skeleton behind to blend with our coral island?