By Irie Cooper, Jennifer MacLatchy, Pawit (PJ) Sethbhakdi, Sandra Henderson

Reader-submitted stories of the COVID-19 pandemic, in no more than 100 words. Read past stories here. Submit your own here.

SLIPPING

Out for a walk with friends by the ocean, having arrived in separate cars, we talk about our fears, and what precautions we are taking. But it is hard to hear what they are saying through my hat, my hood, the ocean’s roar, and the strange distance that we hold between us. My attempts at speaking are lost in the wind, unnoticed. It is hard enough to gain footing in conversations at the best of times, never mind this. I stop trying and feel myself slip away from them, as I focus my attention on the waves, and the ground.

— Jennifer MacLatchy (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada)

(Top photo: The ocean’s roar.)

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NO PROM? NO HONEY STICKS?

“So what are your thoughts on honey sticks?” I whispered as we lay in the grass on an oddly warm day in February. I didn’t even let you answer as I continued to mouth off about how I was going to bring you honey sticks and how fascinating bees are. I didn’t know that would be my last day with you. Soon enough I was on a plane back to California and living with my chaotic family for god knows how long. I watch the bees fly by my window. I think of us and what prom would’ve been like.

— Irie Cooper (Valencia, California)

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HER SMILE

Three hours ago, I was the happiest man in the world. My fiance and I exchanged rings and flew together to our honeymoon in the Bahamas. I can vividly remember the first time we met. It was her smile. I was running my first flight and she was my flight attendant. Her smile kept me relaxed throughout the entire operation. Once we landed, I had the courage to ask her out, and we have flown together since. Sadly, our honeymoon ended prematurely, and I’ll never get to see her smile again if we’ll all be forced to wear white masks.

— Pawit (PJ) Sethbhakdi (Bangkok, Thailand)

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WALKING DISTANCE

We meet with the midwife on the phone.

She answers our questions and we have that standard-issue conversation: how strange these times are, how we look forward to gathering, how certain we are that this is for the best.

The midwife cannot take my blood pressure or listen for the baby’s heartbeat, so I am left to trust that my body and its tiny resident are working as they should. We felt quite clever when we chose a clinic within walking distance of home, didn’t we?

— Sandra Henderson (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)

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This series is edited by Thomas Peterson. One of the editors of Artists & Climate Change, he is also a theatre director and researcher whose work focuses on the climate crisis.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

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By Amy Brady

Hello from Week Six in lockdown in New York City. The days are blurring together, but thanks to links sent to me from folks in this incredibly kind and creative community, I’ve kept myself busy by attending online art shows, live music performances over Zoom, and other interesting things.

Speaking of interesting things, this month I have for you one of my favorite interviews yet. Meet Fabian Almazan, an award-winning jazz pianist and composer, environmentalist, and founder of Biophilia Records. His most recent album, This Land Abounds With Life, is a gorgeous exploration of the relationship between humans and the natural world. His record label, Biophilia, supports the work of other great musicians who share Fabian’s love of nature. Indeed, prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, the record label organized volunteer efforts to help clean up rivers and other natural resources. 

In the interview below, Fabian and I spoke about what inspired him to start Biophilia and what sustains his interests in music and environmental justice.

Your music â€“ especially your latest album, This Land Abounds With Life â€“ evokes images of animals and natural landscapes. There’s even birdsong on some of the tracks. What animals and places â€“ natural or otherwise â€“ inspire your work?

I have been drawn to nature for as long as I can remember. I grew up in the Caribbean, in Havana, Cuba. We lived on the top floor of a four-story building in the heart of Nuevo Vedado, located a couple of blocks away from the zoo. Times were tough in Cuba in the early 90’s. Rather than being told when we wouldn’t have electricity, we were told when we would have it. This meant that I spent many nights doing homework by candle light, and because we lived so close to the zoo, I could hear some of the animals from our apartment. I was fascinated by those sounds.

We could also see the crisp blue ocean from our balcony off in the distance. Some of our family worked for the agricultural sector. We would sometimes visit them in Camagüey, where I would spend a lot of time in the countryside. Cuba is teaming with amphibians and reptiles, and as a kid I spent a lot of time seeking out these creatures. As an adult, this curiosity has continued and one of the things that I really enjoy about touring throughout the world with different bands is that I get to experience all sorts of ecosystems. Whenever I can, I will try to stay an extra day and make it out to local national forests or refuge areas to photograph the wildlife and just breathe it all in. There is life almost everywhere in one form or another, and I find it mysteriously miraculous and inspiring.

Your record label, Biophilia, has a unique mission. Please tell us about it.

In my late teens and early twenties, I became aware of two men without whom I would not have found my way through life: E.O. Wilson and Joseph Campbell. E.O. Wilson’s writings on the biophilia hypothesis helped me affirm the fascination I have with the natural world, and Joseph Campbell gave me the courage to, as he once said, “follow my bliss.”

On a tour with Terence Blanchard throughout the West Coast about ten years ago, we passed through San Diego and Seattle and I went to both zoos since I had some time off during the days. Upon seeing that Herbie Hancock was playing a concert at the Seattle Zoo, something clicked in my mind: my two passions did not have to live in separate worlds; they could be connected. Back in New York, I began going more and more to the Museum of Natural History where I met Michael J. Foster, who was doing research on biodiversity and was interested in the disparity of environmental injustices in wealthy versus poor communities. I learned a lot from him about the different perceptions of sustainability in society and how we can do something about it. 

Growing up in Miami, Florida as a young Hispanic male who was serious about classical piano, jazz and science, I felt pretty isolated sometimes. I didn’t feel like there were others around that fit my description. After meeting with Michael, my initial goal was to form some sort of music organization focused on historically underserved groups and the environment, so as to provide similar-minded artists with a supportive community of peers. Then I spent some time in Johannesburg, South Africa, where I was deeply moved by the experiences and conversations I had with people about apartheid and Nelson Mandela’s efforts to unify people. That was when the idea became clearer in my mind. I would establish Biophilia Records as a label of all genres that values imaginative music and takes an environmentally conscious approach to packaging and distribution.

Additionally, Biophilia Records would coordinate with a variety of sustainability-focused, non-profit organizations to participate in volunteering events that benefit society and the environment. I didn’t want to add more plastic to the world by printing thousands of CDs so I came up with the concept of having an elaborate piece of paper origami art which folds down to the same dimensions as a CD jewel case, containing a unique download code for the music. This, I felt, was a good middle ground between providing a plastic-free product for the super fans that ask for physical products and artists who can continue to have something to sell as merch at the end of their shows. That’s important, because merch sales supplement the ever-dwindling revenue from album sales due to digital pirating and streaming. This paper product became the Biopholio™. In an effort to steer the music industry in a more sustainable direction, we trademarked the Biopholio™ with the hope that fans would embrace this new environmentally conscious format and further push the social change needed to pave the way for better environmental policies in government.

Tell us about the volunteer work that your label’s artists participate in.

This is kind of a sore subject at the moment, because although I have very much enjoyed teaming up with many non-profits to organize such efforts, a big forthcoming event was cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak. We were all set to host our first large-scale volunteering event with permits from the NYC Parks and Recreation department on May 2nd alongside Riverkeeper to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Our artists and fans were going to help clean up the Hudson river, and I was very much looking forward to that. We were also going to have our first ever Biophilia Records Festival at the Jazz Gallery from April 22 to May 2, featuring 13 performances by all of the Biophilia Records artists. This all had to be cancelled due to the crisis the world is facing, and I absolutely support the decision to cancel everything – but it hurts a little bit.

You and your wife, the brilliant bassist Linda May Han Oh, have both spoken about your passion for environmental awareness. What sustains your activism? 

Love is what sustains me on all fronts. 

You’ve led your own bands and have played for years with Terence Blanchard. Who are some of your biggest musical influences? And who are some of your favorites playing today? 

My biggest musical influences are Keith Jarrett, Maurice Ravel, Jonny Greenwood, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Brahms, Stravinsky, Coltrane, and Mahler. Most recently, I’ve become obsessed with a brilliant composer from Philadelphia, David Ludwig. Some of my favorites playing today are all of the musicians on Biophilia Records, of course. 

Do you think that music has the power to move people to think more deeply about climate change and the environment? Why or why not?

The only answer I can give is that music and nature provide me with a visceral urge to live life to its most full and beautiful potential, and all I can do is try to share this feeling with people.

(Photo by Desmond White.)

This article is part of the Climate Art Interviews series. It was originally published in Amy Brady’s “Burning Worlds” newsletter. Subscribe to get Amy’s newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.

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Amy Brady is the Deputy Publisher of Guernica magazine and Senior Editor of the Chicago Review of Books. Her writing about art, culture, and climate has appeared in the Village Voice, the Los Angeles Times, Pacific Standard, the New Republic, and other places. She is also the editor of the monthly newsletter “Burning Worlds,” which explores how artists and writers are thinking about climate change. She holds a PHD in English and is the recipient of a CLIR/Mellon Library of Congress Fellowship. Read more of her work at AmyBradyWrites.com at and follow her on Twitter at @ingredient_x.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

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By Thomas Peterson

We are in the process of developing a new resource for this platform, collecting a database of academic programs, courses, and syllabi that integrate the arts and the study of climate change. Inspired by the International Environmental Communication Association’s resource on Environmental Communication Courses, we want to centralize a list of university courses from all disciplines that engage with climate issues through the arts.

These might be environmental science courses that incorporate artistic media as a means of engaging with a climate-related topic; courses in the environmental humanities, human geography, or environmental policy; art history or theory courses; practice-based courses in any artistic medium that engage with climate; or other intersections of the arts and climate that we have not yet dreamed up. 

We will list the course title, instructor, and institution at which the course is taught, and link to the syllabus, if the instructor is willing to share it. Separately, we will also list academic degree programs focusing specifically on the arts and climate.

Once compiled, this information will be freely available to all, a centralized academic resource for scholarly work and education at the intersection of the arts and climate. We hope this resource will serve as a guide for students looking for a place to start or deciding where to pursue their research, a site of exchange for professors and teachers looking to share knowledge, and a well of inspiration for artists working at this intersection. 

If you teach, have taken, or know of such a course, fill out the form [HERE]. If you would like to share an academic degree program focused on the arts and climate, scroll down to the second form.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

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By Susan Hoffman Fishman

In June of 2017, New York photographer and painter Carleen Sheehan boarded the tall ship Antigua bound for the High Arctic as part of a three-week residency for international artists, scientists, architects and scholars. Sponsored by The Arctic Circle, the residency provides an opportunity for 30 participants to explore the Svalbard Archipelago, located 500 miles north of Norway, and develop new and often experimental work in response to the Arctic landscape.

Prior to being accepted for the expedition, each of the participants submits a project proposal that provides an overview of what they want to accomplish. Sheehan had long admired 19^th century “ghost” photographs, in which unintended flares or blurs occurred during processing, creating “ghost” images. Her original concept for the residency was to capture the shadows of glaciers or what she referred to as the “ghosts” or memories that glaciers held. Upon arrival, though, she discovered that she wasn’t able to capture ice shadows via the cyanotype process she had planned to use, because the intensity of the twenty four hour solstice sunlight melted her ice samples too quickly. Shifting from her original idea, she began literally crawling on the ground, looking closely at the terrain and ice and shooting what she saw with her cameras. What she ultimately discovered serendipitously became the basis of powerful and impactful bodies of work.

GLACIAL COSMOLOGIES

Sheehan developed several series of innovative photographs during the Arctic expedition. The series called Glacial Cosmologies was created by sliding the flat lens of a waterproof camera along the surfaces of pieces of ice found on the shore that had broken off or “calved” from melting glaciers. This scanning process captures the intricate internal structures, called Tydall figures, underneath the surface of the ice that are not visible to the naked eye. John Tyndall, a 19^th century Arctic explorer and physicist, had first noticed the forms occurring in melting glacial ice as air bubbles trapped in the ice reacted to the intense heat of the solstice sun by releasing gases such as methane and CO2, as well as pollens and pollutants from previous centuries.

What Sheehan photographed are the forms that occur just before the ice melts, the bubbles in the ice that burst or “bloom” into shapes resembling flowers. She both reveals the invisible and preserves ephemeral moments in the history of the planet. By providing the viewer with a micro-view of elemental structures that appear repeatedly in nature, she is also emphasizing our inherent interconnectedness. All of the images in the series are printed on metallic silver paper, which, from certain vantage points, recreates the experience of ice glistening in the sun over the Arctic landscape. The Glacial Cosmologyphotographs are ultimately mystical, mysterious, reflective and requiring reflection.

CHALK AND ICE FALL SERIES

The dictionary definition of the word “chalk” is “soft white limestone (calcium carbonate) formed from the skeletal remains of sea creatures.” Sheehan’s photographs in her Chalkseries were taken along the perimeter of a secluded cove in Hvitfiskstranda, Svalbard, and depict large piles of beluga whale bones exuding chalk that were discarded from whale hunts over a century ago. The bones have been cleaned and arranged in a number of dense piles. Using an infrared camera, which detects heat generated by an object and then converts it into an image, Sheehan created photographs where the bones appear as if they are abstract formations suspended in space. As in her Glacial Cosmology series, she developed a dramatic memorial to what no longer exists.

In her Ice Fall series, Sheehan photographed and printed individual pieces of calved glacial ice that had washed ashore as if they are falling from the sky. Installed as a series, the photographs measure 8 ft. high x 20 ft. long. Sheehan related to me her interest in the “fractal nature of ice,” the elemental patterns contained within it that appear in nature over and over again. It is these patterns, she says, that connect “everything to everything.” Looking at these lone pieces of ice that are in the process of melting away and disappearing, we can just as easily imagine a meteor, a small body of matter from outer space, entering the earth’s atmosphere and burning into nothing.

ART FOR ARCTIC’S SAKE AND CHANGE: A PERMANENT SHIP-BASED POLAR ART EXHIBIT

Since her return from the Arctic, Sheehan’s photographs have been shown in a number of exhibitions. In 2018, her work was included in the group exhibition Art for Arctic’s Sake, curated with JoAnna Isaak at Fordham University, where she has taught since 2007. The exhibition included eleven prominent eco-artists whose photographs, videos, projections, and films address, as the exhibition catalogue describes, “the profound impact climate change is having upon the sensitive ecosystem of the Arctic and the communities that rely upon the region’s natural resources… For many of us, the Arctic remains abstract and distant, but the work of the artists in this exhibition brings the Arctic and the disconcerting changes taking place there to our immediate attention, revealing the epic scale of global interconnectedness.”

Sheehan’s work is currently included in Change: A Permanent Ship-Based Polar Art Exhibition aboard the National Geographic Endurance, a brand new polar expedition vessel. Curated by internationally acclaimed New York artist Zaria Forman, Change occupies each deck of the ship and explores “the themes of polar light, the intimate geometries of vast geographies, human history in polar regions and more.” Prior to the pandemic, the Endurance’s voyages in 2020 were scheduled to include Iceland, Antarctica, South Georgia and the Falklands, East Greenland and Norway, the wild coasts of Argentina, the High Arctic, the Russian Arctic, the Northeast Passage and Southern Patagonia.

All of Sheehan’s photographs are labeled with a name and the location where they were taken, telling a story about a particular place and time. She admits to being interested in disarming viewers with the ambiguity of the images she takes in order to encourage them to look at the photos with a different perspective, just as she was disarmed when she first experienced the Arctic landscape. As she describes it, she was totally disoriented by the sheer scale of the place and needed to reassess her place in it. Whereas many of the artists confronted by the Arctic’s grandeur try to capture that enormity, Sheehan ultimately turned to the micro-scale examples of invisible and visible natural wonders that are disappearing every day. For that reason, in addition to her role as an artist, she is serving as an historian of record as well as an heiress to the tradition of polar exploration.

(Top image: Blomstrand Glacier, Svalbard. Pigmented inkjet print on silver paper, 19” x 26”, 2017.)

This article is part of Imagining Water, a series on artists of all genres who are making the topic of water and climate disruption a focus of their work and on the growing number of exhibitions, performances, projects and publications that are appearing in museums, galleries and public spaces around the world with water as a theme.

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Susan Hoffman Fishman is a painter, public artist and writer. Her work has been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries throughout the US and she has received numerous grants and commissions. Since 2011, all of her paintings, installations and drawings have focused on water and climate change. She co-created a national, interactive public art project, The Wave, which addresses our mutual need for and interdependence on water and has inspired thousands of adults and children of all ages, abilities and backgrounds to protect this vital resource. Her most recent body of work calls attention to the growing number of rampikes along our shores – dead trees that have been exposed to salt water as a result of rising tides.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

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By Carolyn Sandoval, Chloe Cassidy, Donna Hoke, Jeffrey K. Johnson

Reader-submitted stories of the COVID-19 pandemic, in no more than 100 words. Read past stories here. Submit your own here.

FRACTURED

It’s been nearly four years since we’ve felt such extremes. Anxiety. Stupidity. Complacency. Fear. Death. Anxiety. Complacency. Fear. Death. This should have been different. This should not have created divides between “this is really inconvenient” and “I just lost a son and husband,” between sold out shallots and sold out sympathy cards. We’re beyond fractured. There is gnawing fear of exposure but clawing fear of what has been exposed. And staying inside becomes not just sheltering in place, but also sheltering from the divide, sheltering in the only stillness.

— Donna Hoke (East Amherst, New York)

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NO HEROES HERE

Shelter in place, I’m told. COVID-19 is here. I button up my stiff white dress shirt and throw on a muted-color suit. I’m one of the privileged few that get to leave the house every day. I’m one of the people they don’t talk about on the news. In a footnote maybe, they mention the number of deaths. They never mention me. I am on the frontlines but don’t qualify for hero status. I’m called. I respond. I am always responding. At least I have N95 masks now. I may have been exposed. I could be next.

— Jeffrey K. Johnson (Pineville, Louisiana)

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INSPIRATION

“Have a good day,” I tell my partner as I kiss her goodbye and head to work in the makeshift office in the dining room downstairs. I am grateful that it’s my day to Zoom all day where the comfortable office chair is located. Achy from weeks of staring at my computer screen, filled with my colleagues’ faces (and their pets and kids in the background on good days), I settle in and breathe a sigh of gratitude for the privilege of working alongside inspiring people, and within reach of hummingbirds and blooms that hang out on the patio.

— Carolyn Sandoval (Solana Beach, California)

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ODE TO GAIA

She is healing, but she needs our help. Her body has been ravaged by bushfires so furious they left her hollow. Floods of emotion swept through her outer edges, and afterwards burnt remnants of the fires washed up onto the shores. I discovered these fragile pieces left to slowly weather away, as the passers-by are now kept at a distance. I tend to the pieces as if I can mend and heal each through repair and reverie. The pieces are renewed. They awaken the senses once more. Gaia is beginning again. We are all in stages of healing.

— Chloe Cassidy (Sydney, NSW, Australia)

(Top photo: Healing and reverie.)

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This series is edited by Thomas Peterson. One of the editors of Artists & Climate Change, he is also a theatre director and researcher whose work focuses on the climate crisis.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

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