Tidal Apparition

A site-specific installation of salt and glass sculptures on the beach of the Hudson River at Long Dock Park, Beacon, NY

Commissioned for the 2025 Soon Is Now eco and climate art festival, October 19, 2025

Tidal Apparition is a site-responsive installation of salt and glass sculptures in the landscape. This ongoing body of work has only been shown indoors, meticulously shielded from the elements. They require special protection from dense, ambient humidity, which reacts with salt. However, as destructive storms and floods now shape our lives in precarious ways amidst climate change, it seemed that the sculptures—as bodies—might also need to face these conditions. For Soon Is Now, I made a new group of salt and glass works intended to spend one day of unknown conditions at the beach of Long Dock Park. Merging with sunlight, an unpredictable late October river, and site sounds, they embrace their own vulnerability. 

The project unfolded over a month of site visits with the sculptures, beginning on the fall equinox of 2025. These visits extended into October. I recorded their locations at micro-sites along a specific part of the beach. The documentation traces their shifting relationships with light, foliage, tide, and weather—revealing an extended process of encounter rather than a fixed installation. The public viewing of the installation occurred as the autumn light shifted; the afternoon sunlight was at an acute and garish angle, the tide choppy, the winds were high.

The works in Tidal Apparition use a palette of ambers, chartreuse, opaline pastels, and transparent topaz that shift with the sunlight’s intensity. These sculptures incorporate glass with high silver content, which heightens their transformations and allows the sculptures to vacillate as dynamic objects with presence and agency.

McKinley’s process is grounded in reverence for the land. She emphasizes the importance of being attuned to the site she is working with — to intuit “those moments where things start to feel a little out of alignment, and adjusting, and realizing that we are working with conscious beings when we’re working with nature,” she said. “It’s not just a place; it’s not just a backdrop — it’s a fully alive system and set of beings that are all in relationship.’’ —Emma Fiona Jones for Albany Times-Union