By Elizabeth Ellenwood

Some of my earliest childhood memories are of coral reefs. In 1992, my family sailed from Florida to the Bahamas. I still remember my five-year-old self mesmerized by the crystal-clear water and the world of creatures living beneath its surface. My “class time” consisted of snorkeling and observing the reefs: fish of all sizes darting in and out of vibrant coral structures, conch shells glistening and nurse sharks gently resting on the sandy sea floor, jellyfish camouflaging with the water, and, on the lucky days, spiny lobsters emerging from their caves. I was witnessing a thriving ecosystem. This formative childhood experience cultivated in me a lifelong love of the ocean. Less than 30 years later, the coral reef ecosystems are collapsing or have fully collapsed as a result of climate change. Now, as a practicing artist, I feel an urgency to help protect and bring attention to the vital reef systems that sparked my interest in the ocean.

Climate change means ocean change. The ocean’s temperature is warming, it is becoming more acidic, sea level is rising, and storm patterns and precipitation are changing. All of these factors individually create stress for corals. Combined, they have demolished the reef systems that have flourished for centuries. The coral reefs of my childhood memories are bleaching, and entire ocean ecosystems are vanishing due to the loss of their habitats.

The term “coral bleaching” has bounced around news headlines for years, but it took documentaries like Chasing Coral and Mission Blue to inspire me to dig deeper into the science. Corals get their colors from pigment-rich algae that live within their tissues. The coral-algae partnership is symbiotic, each supporting one another. When stressed from the ocean changes, the algae are expelled from the coral, revealing the white coral skeleton underneath. This bleaching triggers a domino effect: all living organisms that relied on the reef habitat either vacate or die, from the smallest plankton to the largest predator. The reef system is rapidly turning into a wasteland; no corals, no fish. This devastation is taking place on a massive scale and at a rapid rate, with nearly half of the world’s coral reefs bleached or severely damaged.

This devastation has swept through coral reefs in the Bahamas – the very ones that brought me so much childhood joy. I feel a loss for the diverse ecosystems that depended on the corals. Caught in a vortex of pollution, rising temperatures, acidification, and overfishing, thinking about humanity’s destruction of our waterways can be paralyzing. But to improve our relationship with the ocean and bring about positive change, we must fully understand the effects of our actions.

My research on coral reef bleaching led to the creation of my series, Fading Reefs. I am inspired by the biology of corals, driven by sadness for the loss of the reefs from my childhood, and compelled to shed light on this destructive cycle. It is important to me to create based on science and in a sustainable way, using environmentally friendly processes and as few materials as possible. One of the oldest photographic processes, the anthotype, uses the light sensitivity of plants and sunlight to create an image. Because these prints fade over time, it is difficult to research historical images, though documents and research track its emergence from 1816 to 1844.

I see the process of coral bleaching and the anthotype process as linked together. Making anthotypes requires time and patience. This process begins with crushing or juicing a plant to create the light-sensitive emulsion. A piece of paper is then soaked in the liquid and dried, absorbing the pigment of the plant. An image on transparency film is placed on top of the color-stained paper and then placed in direct sunlight. The image develops and appears on the page as the sunlight bleaches the pigment in the exposed areas of the plant emulsion. This is a very slow process; depending on the plant used and the strength of the sun, the printing can take days, weeks, or even months. Once developed, anthotype images will fade over time, especially if they are exposed to UV light. There is no way to make them permanent, which I see as a beautiful quality to embrace. 

In the 1800s, anthotypes were stored in what they called “night albums” and only viewed by candlelight to help preserve the images. Some artists build boxes or use black fabric over their framed piece to protect the prints while they are on display. When Fading Reefsis exhibited, I embrace the impermanence of the process and leave my prints uncovered to speak to the vulnerability of the corals. The anthotype process is a perfect way to tell the reefs’ stories, the bleaching pigment in the prints refers to the devastating loss of pigment-rich algae that not only give corals their colors, but most importantly keep them alive. The prints in Fading Reefs are delicate, time sensitive, and beautiful – just like our ocean’s coral reefs.

Just as the algae is crucial to the corals’ survival, the corals are vital to the oceans, and the oceans are integral to human life. It is possible many of us will go our entire lives without actually seeing a living coral reef, but we must work urgently to save these necessary ecosystems. Corals not only support an underwater ecosystem, they also provide for life above the water’s surface. Reef structures provide crucial protection from storms for coastal areas and offer an abundance of food that we consume. Studying individual corals and organisms living within the reefs even helps advance medical technology and treatments. No corals means an unhealthy and unbalanced ocean, which affects the entirety of the world. 

We all have skills and abilities that can help our coral reefs and waterways. Small actions have the potential to contribute to global impacts. Paying attention to what we consume, where we shop, and what organizations we support can support a thriving ecosystem. While half the world’s coral reefs have been negatively impacted, the remaining fifty percent desperately need our help. We need to get creative in our conversations and solutions, ultimately bringing awareness to and helping to protect these very special underwater worlds.

While Fading Reefs started with my memories and my call to action, it is ultimately about our shared world, our oceans, and our shared responsibility. It is my hope that my anthotype prints will not only act as a reminder of the rare and precious life that exists in our oceans, but also provide insight and perspective on coral reefs, inspiring viewers to become involved in ocean conservation and compelling individuals to acknowledge that the fate of the oceans and of humanity are woven tightly together.

(Top Image: Fading Reefs 4, Anthotype made with red cabbage.)

______________________________

Elizabeth Ellenwood uses photography to visually explore and bring attention to critical environmental issues. She is a recipient of a U.S. Fulbright Student Research Grant and an American Scandinavian Grant. Her recent solo exhibition at The Alexey von Schlippe Gallery was supported by a Connecticut Sea Grant Art Support Award. Elizabeth’s work was recently exhibited at The Newport Art Museum, Panopticon Gallery and The Vermont Center of Photography. Elizabeth received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from The New Hampshire Institute of Art and a Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art from the University of Connecticut.

———-

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

Powered by WPeMatico

By Amy Brady

This month I have for you an interview with Tamiko Beyer, a writer whose latest poetry collection, Last Days, is out now on Alice James Books. Tamiko writes passionately about the climate crisis and how it’s driven by systemic forces like capitalism and racism. She’s also a social justice communications writer and strategist.

I spoke with Tamiko about what inspired her most recent collection, how she thinks about climate change beyond her writing, and the role she sees poetry playing in our larger discourse on climate change.

The poems in your recent collection, Last Days, are rife with images of plants, animals, and humans living and moving together. Is it fair to say that you’re encouraging readers to think about interconnectedness between life forms? Or perhaps that the boundaries between humans and other living things might be more porous than many folks believe?
 
Yes, that’s exactly right. I wrote Last Days as a poetic practice of radical imagination for our current political and environmental crises. I believe that one of the root causes of these crises is how disconnected so many of us feel to each other and the world around us. This vast disconnection makes it possible to internalize and enforce white supremacist structures. And, the exploitation of people and the natural world required by capitalist systems is made far easier when CEOs, workers, and consumers (that is, all of us) can disconnect from the harm we are causing to other people, other beings, and the Earth by our participation in this system.
 
I wanted to explore what it might look, feel, and sound like to live into the truth that we are all completely interdependent. How do I understand the ways in which I am more connected to than separate from the warbler singing in the laurel tree next to the tidal river? In what ways are we both dependent on the tree and the river, and the algae and the bacteria? What does it mean to move through the world as if we are all connected not just in the present moment, but also across time and space – connected to our ancestors and the generations that will come after us?
 
Your poems also speak to environmental crises. What else do you hope readers take away from this collection?
 
I hope that these poems encourage readers to follow their own threads of interdependence, and see how that might shift their relationships to the people and beings around them.
 
But of course, the climate crisis cannot be solved only by individual changes. I hope that some of these poems also encourage readers to think about the larger systems that are fueling the crisis, like racialized capitalism.
 
The central poem of the collection follows a small group of revolutionaries who are taking down the Corporate empire. As they do, the main character comes to understand her own power and trust her intuition. I think 2020 made clear to so many more people that we are, indeed, in the last days of the Corporate empire. We need radical, transformative changes if we – all beings – are going to survive the climate and related crises.
 
So I wrote this book for all the activists, organizers, healers, cultural workers, teachers, and artists who are doing the daily work of creating radically new worlds within this broken one. My wish is that these readers can lean into the hope that Last Days is rooted in, and that the poems offer ways for them to ground in their power.

Do you think about environmental issues, climate change, and related problems beyond what you write about in your poetry?

It’s impossible for me to live in this world, in this moment, in this body, and not think about and be affected by the climate crisis and its root causes – racism, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy. As a writer of prose and poetry, and as a social justice communications strategist, I feel called to write about the structures and systems we are living under, as well as the ways that we can navigate through them, ultimately tear them down, and create new ones. 

For most of the years during which I worked on Last Days, I worked at Corporate Accountability, which wages campaigns challenging the life-threatening abuses of corporations, and I still write for them as a freelancer. So I’m often writing about Big Polluters, their role in fueling the climate crisis, and the solutions that are being led by communities on the frontlines of the crisis – Black, Indigenous, people of color; communities in the Global South; women; people with disabilities; and youth.

I also write about these issues in my newsletter, Starlight and Strategy.

What role do you think poetry plays in our larger conversations and thinking about climate and environmental issues?

Poetry invites us to think and feel expansively and nonlinearly, to listen closely, and be willing to be completely surprised. I can think of it as practice for how to implement solutions to the climate crisis. We need to listen to the people on the front lines who are already putting these solutions to work. We need to be expansive, radical, and unfettered by what we’re told is politically possible.

My favorite kind of poetry helps me understand language as more than just utility, but as magic. I’m currently co-editing a book with fellow poets Destiny Hemphill and Lisbeth White on poetry as spellcasting, by and for BIPOC. We are thinking about how poems are ritualized acts of liberation. One section of the book is devoted to the way poetry as spellcasting can help re-establish a reciprocal relationship with the Earth and help us move in right relationship towards healing deep wounds inflicted on ourselves and the Earth.

Some of your poems speak to the damage – ecological and cultural – wrought by colonialism. 

The collection as a whole grapples with the many manifestations of white supremacy, of which colonialism is one. Colonialism can only succeed when both the people who are doing the colonizing and those who are colonized feel deeply disconnected from the source and power of the land and the people.

I spent my first ten years in Japan where I absorbed both the fundamental Buddhist teaching of interdependence, as well as the form of animism that is central to the Shinto religion. I grew up understanding that things have a spirit – are beings – whether they are animate or inanimate, and that all beings are connected. These are ancient teachings, central also to Indigenous cultures, and colonization and imperialism have attempted at every turn to destroy such ways of understanding the world. No wonder we are in the crises we are in. In this collection I seek paths back into interconnection.

Your collection opens with quotes from three incredible writers and activists, including Audre Lorde. Her quote is: “I have always known I learn my most lasting lessons about difference by closely attending the ways in which the differences inside me lie down together.” How do these powerful words relate to the poetry in your collection?

Yes, the work of all three powerful women – Audre Lorde, Grace Lee Boggs, and adrienne maree brown – were influential in the development of this collection.

When I was pulling the book together, I was reading Audre Lorde’s collection of essays, “A Burst of Light.” I spent a lot of time with the titular essay: diary entries as she lived her life with cancer. That line, that idea, appears in several places in the essay, and it stayed with me. I guess it’s another approach toward understanding how we are interconnected – we all have differences inside ourselves, and knowing how to navigate these differences in generative ways teaches us to better navigate differences with others to whom we depend on and are connected to. As a queer multiracial femme and a third culture kid, I’ve spent a lot of time navigating the differences inside me, and I was interested in what it might look like to think about how they “lie down together.” Many of the poems that address race and nationality in this collection is my attempt to do that.

Your approach to launching this book is a bit unusual. Please tell us about it!

In this political moment, I feel called to reimagine what I do and how I do it. So as I thought about launching this book, I was interested in how it could be a catalyst for new ways of thinking about the intersection of arts and organizing, poetry, and movement work. I developed an idea for a launch grounded in collaboration and solidarity instead of competition, one that operates within a gift economy instead of a capitalist approach.

The central component of this project is to give away Last Days and performance artist and poet Gabrielle Civil‘s forthcoming chapbook, ( ghost gestures ), to at least 250 organizers, campaigners, activists, cultural workers, and healers, prioritizing people working on racial, climate, and economic justice. At the time I write this, we’ve already got 175 people signed up to receive the books. I’m also organizing virtual “catalyst events” in the fall to inspire and activate people; creating tools for teachers to share the books with a new generation of organizers, activists, writers, artists, and cultural workers; and promoting other BIPOC writers with new books through my website, newsletter, and social media. And I created a successful fundraising campaign to power it all, asking people in my network and strangers to support this new way of launching a book.

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.

___________________________

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.

———-

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

Powered by WPeMatico

By Peterson Toscano

In the Art House this month, we feature song leaders Annie Patterson and Peter Blood. They are liberal Quakers in New England who have been leading singing for over 30 years. They talk about the songs that motivate and inspire climate advocates. Some are protest songs and others are beautiful ballads. They discuss the role of music in social movements as they offer up their own tiny desk concert. 

Annie and Peter are the creators of the Rise Up Singing and Rise Again Song Books. These songbooks take on social justice issues like racism, poverty, inequality, and sexism. See them in action on the Rise Up and Sing YouTube channel.

Annie and Peter appeared on Citizens Climate Radio episode 57: The Tide is Rising along with former U.S. representative Bob Inglis, a Republican fostering conversations with fellow Conservatives.

Next month, we meet Claire Vaye Watkins, author of the cli-fi novel, Gold Fame Citrus.

If you like what you hear, you can listen to full episodes of Citizens’ Climate Radio on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, SoundCloud, Podbean, Northern Spirit Radio, Google Play, PlayerFM, and TuneIn Radio. Also, feel free to connect with other listeners, suggest program ideas, and respond to programs in the Citizens’ Climate Radio Facebook group or on Twitter at @CitizensCRadio.

This article is part of The Art House series.

______________________________

As host of Citizens’ Climate Radio, Peterson Toscano regularly features artists who address climate change in their work. The Art House section of his program includes singer/songwriters, visual artists, comics, creative writers, and playwrights. Through a collaboration with Artists and Climate Change and Citizens’ Climate Education, each month Peterson reissues The Art House for this blog. If you have an idea for The Art House, contact Peterson: radio @ citizensclimatelobby.org

———-

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

Powered by WPeMatico

By Joan Sullivan

This post is part of an ongoing series of occasional musings about the larger context in which we currently find ourselves: an energy transition, of which there have been several throughout human history. I have chosen Barry Lord’s important book, Art & Energy: How Culture Changes as our guide, because it sheds much-needed light on the reciprocal relationship between art, artists, and energy transitions through the ages. I also draw inspiration from the emerging field of Energy Humanities, led by Imre Szeman and his colleagues at the University of Alberta and the University of Waterloo in Canada. For previous posts in this series, please check here and here.

A common thread throughout Barry Lord’s book, Art & Energy: How Culture Changes, is that energy transitions overlap. This may seem obvious and redundant. But readers of this blog will appreciate that the social and cultural tensions inherent to these decades-long (sometimes centuries-long) energy transitions – when the new trumps the old – inevitably result in profound changes across all sectors of society: transportation, architecture, agriculture, industry, politics, warfare, and culture. These shifting tectonic plates, if you will, have inspired artists throughout the ages – in the past as in the present – to respond with bold new methods of expression.

What’s different today, of course, is that 21st century artists are not just responding to the current transition from non-renewable fuels to renewable sources of energy. They are primarily responding to the much broader context in which the current energy transition is but one part: the global climate emergency that has triggered the sixth mass extinction. The stakes have never been higher. We need artists of all stripes and colors on board, ASAP. 

A tsunami of artists from all disciplines and from all corners of the globe have already risen up; many have found a home here on the Artists and Climate Change platform. But for those artists and writers who have not yet “found their voice” within the global climate movement, I’d like to suggest that they take a closer look at energy transitions as a source of artistic inspiration – as did JMW Turner in the middle of the 19th century. Turner witnessed the dying days of the “age of sail”, as tall sailing ships were replaced by smaller, polluting coal-powered steam ships that were not dependent upon the whims of the trade winds. 

An excellent place for artists and writers to begin reading about energy transitions is Barry Lord’s book. It artfully weaves together the history of the reciprocal relationship between art, artists, and energy transitions over the millennia. This book provides valuable insights to help contemporary artists understand the current energy transition within a historical and cultural context. 

Lord shines a light on artists who played pivotal roles in previous energy transitions by influencing (how I loathe that word!) social and cultural values that contributed, either directly or indirectly, to broadening the consensus for cutting-edge “alternative” energy sources. And, as each previous energy transition has already demonstrated, it is only a matter of time before these so-called “alternative” energy sources dethrone the formerly dominant energy source(s). 

The same can be said for today’s renewable sources of energy – wind, water and sun. While no one (yet) can predict how long fossil fuels and renewable energy will co-exist within the global energy mix, one thing is for sure: renewable energy will eventually dethrone fossil fuels to become the world’s dominant energy source. It’s only a matter of time. But time for the climate is running out… 

Moreover, the critically important questions of who controls the future production and distribution of all this clean energy, and its geopolitical consequences, are beyond the scope of this post. For those interested in a deeper dive into the energy humanities, I suggest the recent January 2021 special issue on “solarity” in the South Atlantic Quarterly.

My goal in this post is simply to encourage artists to recognize the historical precedent of previous generations of artists who, intentionally or otherwise, helped contribute to successful energy transitions by influencing the perception of and the cultural values associated with the “alternative” energy source. The current energy transition is no exception. Once again, artists can help us get there more quickly. 

Nina Simone said it best: “An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.” 

And how the times have changed! I only recently discovered that coal was initially considered an “alternative” energy source, i.e., alternative to renewables. Wood, wind, water, animal power, and human slavery were the dominant energy sources (all renewable) from the earliest human settlements right up into the middle of the 19th century. So it is quite remarkable how quickly this new “alternative” coal became the world’s dominant energy source: by the late-19th century, coal was crowned “king,” fueling the Industrial Revolution. Coal’s heyday lasted approximately 200 years, until it was usurped by oil and gas in the post-WW2 era. Although coal’s contribution to the global energy mix has been declining ever since, it still generates nearly 40% of global electricity. 

Having photographed the renewable energy transition for more than a decade, I’m eager to convince other artists and writers that energy transitions are truly fascinating and a rich source of inspiration! Not just from a technological perspective, but from many inter-connected social, cultural, historical, and political perspectives. Let’s be clear: today’s energy transition is definitely not just about solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and battery storage. As promising as these solutions are, technological infrastructure alone does not an energy transition make. What’s missing is the social or human component.

I’ve started calling this missing component of the current energy transition the “human transition.” By this I mean an awakening, a renaissance, an unquenchable thirst to break free from the chains of our lifelong addiction to fossil fuels. To fully embrace, in Lord’s words, the tantalizing possibility of a shift away from a “culture of consumption” (proscribed by the age of oil) towards a “culture of stewardship” (inherent to the age of renewables). 

This is where global artists come in: to wake us up from our stupor, like the protest music of the 60s and 70s.

Without music and poetry, without the deceptively simple lyrics and melody of the next “Imagine” which will be forever seared into our collective consciousness, I fear that the current energy transition will not evolve quickly enough. Technology alone can not do it for us.

This profound shift in social norms and cultural values requires nothing less than revolutionary transformation – at both the individual and collective levels – of the way our violent extraction-based society is organized. More urgently, it requires looking at ourselves in the mirror to confront the ghosts of acquiescence: why and how we have allowed ourselves to remain numb for so long to the unspeakable violence, injustices, and inequalities to both the human and non-human worlds throughout the entire fossil fuel era. Without critical self-reflection, a truly Copernican transformation seems unlikely. 

Technological infrastructure alone does not an energy transition make.

As we have learned from previous energy transitions, artists can and must use their creative energy to question the past and envision the future. I’ve purposely left out many of the more complicated and thorny geopolitical issues that are so well addressed by energy humanities researchers Imre Szeman and Darin Barney, co-editors of the previously mentioned special issue on solarity.

With their blessing, I’d like to end here by quoting directly from their introductory chapterin that journal. It is impossible for me to paraphrase: their words are so powerful, going straight for the jugular. Please take note.

The solarity we envision is committed to the core impulse guiding left politics, which is the struggle for equality and social justice against the rapacious force of extractive capitalism. The realities of environmental racism and the implication of energy extraction in ongoing colonial histories mean that any concept of solidarity worth the name must begin from the experiences of those whose bodies and relations have been made expendable through the brutality of extraction, and who stand to suffer most greatly from the accelerating climate and environmental effects of fossil fuels (citing Kathryn Yusoff, 2019). 

This means that solarity begins in solidarity with Black and Indigenous people in the Americas and elsewhere, with racialized and impoverished communities in the so-called Global South, with women, with care-workers, with those who have been disabled by their environments, and with the non-human others previously relegated to the exploitable domains of mere objecthood (citing Jamie Cross 2019; Sarah Jaquette Ray 2017; Sheena Wilson 2018; and Kyle Whyte 2017).

The first imperative of solidarity in relation to these will be to stand aside and accept their leadership in the struggle against the global fossil fuel regime, and in the development of radically alternative practices, relations, and infrastructures of solarity. This might include putting our (in our case: white, male, affluent) bodies and our accustomed ways of living on the line, as others have done for so long with theirs. As Nandita Badami argues in her provocative essay in this issue, we may need to turn from Eurocentric ideas about the sun and “enlightment” to a solarity of endarkenment.

The second imperative is to think and work together to develop political and economic forms that facilitate, nurture, and manage egalitarian societies, as an energetic base for even more widespread social transformation. A solarity animated by solidarity will require humility, patience, and courage, especially on the part of those for whom petrocapitalism has delivered mostly comfort, convenience and impunity. This, and not just our fuel source, has to change.”

Very powerful words, indeed. Thank you Imre and Darin.

(Unless otherwise noted, all photos by Joan Sullivan.)

This article is part of the Renewable Energy series.

______________________________

Joan Sullivan is a Canadian photographer and member of @WomenPhotograph, focused on the energy transition. In her monthly column for Artists and Climate Change, Joan explores the intersection of art and the energy transition. She is currently experimenting with abstract photography as a new language to express her grief about climate breakdown. You can find Joan on Twitter and Visura.

———-

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 eJoan Sullivanquipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

Powered by WPeMatico

By Susan Hoffman Fishman

Multi-media artist and educator Itty Neuhaus has spent a great deal of time observing and interpreting environmental changes in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, and in Iceland and Greenland. Since 2000, when she took her first trip to Iceland, her drawings, photographs, sculptures, and videos have addressed the degradation of glaciers and the nature of icebergs. 

Neuhaus’ initial interest in the region was piqued by John McPhee’ description in The Control of Nature (1989) of an Icelandic physicist’s effort to divert the flow of a volcano by directing voluminous jets of water at it. She was fascinated by the notion of attempting to re-sculpt the Earth, as the scientist had done, and decided that she wanted to see Iceland for herself. On the flight there, Neuhaus observed a line of icebergs calving off a glacier and felt a sense of intense loss. In her attempt to process these feelings, she discovered a working method and subject area that would dominate her practice over the following years. 

During that first visit to Iceland, Neuhaus began a postcard series in which she removed areas of pretty tourist scenes by scratching away at the surface of the postcards with a stylus and superimposing ice melts and other environmental losses onto the idyllic imagery. She also observed the deep crevasses that existed in the glaciers and heard stories about individuals who had fallen to their deaths within them. As a result of the experience, she began to imagine that the Earth itself has a conscious volition and is luring us into its center – a notion that later led her to create a body of work on human bodies and crevasses.

With funding from the State University of New York at New Paltz, where she has taught since 2000, Neuhaus continued to travel to locations where she could observe icebergs and glaciers. In 2011, she spent four months on a research and lecture fellowship as a Fulbright Scholar in Newfoundland and Labrador that included three months as an artist in residence at the Gros Morne National Park through Parks Canada. Her experiences helped her to understand how artists have an opportunity to educate the public on the climate crisis by translating big issues like habitat loss and environmental degradation into provocative imagery. 

During that time, Neuhaus continued to create what she refers to as “scratch works,” taking photographs of icebergs and scratching into the surfaces to show melting ice and other environmental impacts of climate change. For one particular piece, she sat on a rock waiting for an iceberg to flip over as the waves increased and changed. While she was waiting, she considered her hours-long observation to be a metaphor for how we are all simply waiting for the Earth to change in radical ways without implementing effective interventions. The underside of icebergs and their actual movements filmed over a period of four hours from a bluff in Twillingate, Newfoundland is reflected in a 2008 video entitled Dance of the Three-Pronged Wonder. In order to emphasize the mystery of what lies beneath the surface of the water, Neuhaus digitally altered these portions of the iceberg so that they appear to grow as the icebergs dance to a waltz by P.I. Tchaikovsky.

In 2015-2016, as a Fulbright Scholar on an Arctic Initiative, Neuhaus was the only artist among a cohort of physical and social scientists, economists, and others who were studying the degradation of icebergs in Greenland. Using a hydro-robot designed for the task, they were measuring the size, salinity, and other aspects of the icebergs while she was drawing and videotaping them. The work she began there culminated in a 2018 solo exhibition titled Sublimation: An Iceberg’s Story, which was held at the Kentler International Drawing Space in Brooklyn, New York. The show included a scratched composite photograph taken in Greenland, printed to a size of 27’ x 4,’ backlit, and hanging loosely over two gallery walls. It also included a video written and filmed by Neuhaus called Icylla, An Iceberg’s Story. Told in the voice of Icylla, the last existing iceberg in a world without ice, the piece incorporates a watery soundtrack, a gritty narration, animation, and stunning imagery of Greenland and Iceland.

Neuhaus completed Arctic Magnetism, a “scratch work” based on a photograph of the Russell Glacier in Greenland, in 2019 (see detail at the top). A large-scale photograph printed on film in two pieces as mirror images, it was created, as much of her work is, by removing portions of the photograph with scratch nibs and steel wool. Almost nine feet in length, the Russell Glacier looms over us as if sucking us in and pushing us away at the same time. With its dramatic imagery and frenetic motion, Arctic Magnetism exudes a sense of foreboding and serves as a metaphor for our own impending demise.

During the extraordinary 2020-2021 pandemic year, Neuhaus decided to pause from her usual subject matter and address the way in which the virus has imbued us all with a fear of touch. Instructed not to shake hands, hug, or conduct any normal actions that necessitate physical contact with other human being outside of our “pods,” we washed our hands constantly to prevent infection. Her series of monoprints and paintings, each 18” x 24,” consists of hands rendered in black and white in the process of washing. Shown together, the Wall of Hands emphasizes the redemptive and regenerative nature of water, which both cleans and heals. 

Neuhaus’ inventive works cleverly imitate the melting and disappearance of icebergs and glaciers. As she goes through the process of scratching at the surface of her photographs, she can viscerally feel how the ice is melting away and how the landscape she witnessed at one particular moment in time is changing before her eyes. It is imperative in viewing these frozen moments in time not only to serve as witnesses to this change but to do everything in our power to prevent further environmental loss.  

(Top image: Arctic Magnetism, photograph of Russell Glacier, Greenland. Printed on backlit film. Drawing by removal with scratch nibs, steel wool with water-based crayons, 106” x 44,” 2019.)

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.

______________________________

Susan Hoffman Fishman is a painter, public artist and writer whose work has been exhibited widely in museums and galleries throughout the U.S. Since 2011, all of her paintings, installations and photographs have addressed water and climate change. She co-created a national, participatory public art project, The Wave, which addresses our mutual need for and interdependence on water and which 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 – trees that have been exposed to salt water and died as a result of rising tides.

———-

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

Powered by WPeMatico