Dominion
The aquarium is submerged, its captives free.
Joyce Carey drew inspiration from two sources for her art quilt Dominion: Genesis 1:28 (“be fruitful and multiply. . . and have dominion”) and her own essay, “Inversion,” which describes a visit to the aquarium in San Francisco:
I settle outside on a bench at the end of the wharf. I let my gaze drift far out to sea.
I sense the water rising, creeping up the pier, up the bridge, millimeter by millimeter. An ancient icepack thousands of miles away dissolves with every breath I take. The aquarium is submerged, its captives free. Streets give way to canals; workers erect bubbles, small terrariums—then larger and larger domes. Tunnels connect the bubbles, the world gone topsy-turvy, water above and air below.
Indigo shadows are lengthening along the pier. It is much later than I thought.
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