Tacoma Chapter
Our solution to climate change? Democracy.
Murals and Installations
Morel Doucet, Aclonna, 2012 on left, and Christening of Land and Water, 2022, on right. Ceramic.
"I consider many of my pieces to be double-edged swords, enticing, and luring the viewer with beauty while reminding them of their complacency in the destruction of the dying environment." A Haitian immigrant now based in Miami, Doucet creates whimsical, delicate, Rococo-like forms that "allude to a larger conversation about sea-level rise, environmental pollution, and the displacement between descendants of the African diaspora and their physical environments."
Caroline S. Roberts, "The present of my life looks different under trees," (quote from Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek), installation, 2019. Sixty 11’ high panels, each one representing a year of Houston weather data, encircle the gallery like a grove of trees. The width varies based on rainfall intensity (the number of days with rainfall was greater than 3 inches, the point at which street flooding occurs). The color, from pale to dark, represents the average nighttime temperature for that year. "At first glance the immersive nature of this cyanotype installation provides a cool calm environment. However, more shocking than any graph, this forest-like environment shows the story of rising temperatures and intensifying rain events."
Pejac, (Spanish street artist Silvestre Santiago), Fossil, 2018. An "artistic intervention" in a hip Brooklyn neighborhood undergoing intense gentrification. Known for his striking silhouettes such as the great Human Nature of 2013 in Salamanca (seen below), here Pejac uses a stencil to spray paint carefully placed shadows on a brick wall, creating a 3d illusion of a pixelated tree. "Fossil is proposing a hypothetical fatal future in which the only memory of nature is the fossilized appearance of a tree on a brick wall."
Sean Yoro, aka HULA, A’o’ Ana or The Warning, 2015. HULA is known for his ephemeral murals in or near bodies of water. The Warning group of works (on the left) were painted directly onto melting icebergs in the Arctic and Iceland (with his own eco-friendly pigments) to raise awareness about climate issues. "Within a few weeks these murals will be forever gone, but for those who find them, I hope they ignite a sense of urgency, as they represent the millions of people in need of our help who are already being affected from the rising sea levels of climate change.”
On the right: This Hawaiian artist was featured at the 2022 Tacoma Oceanfest. He is seen here painting a frequent motif, an indigenous woman's profile, from his "paddle board studio."
Iena Cruz, (Federico Massa from Milan), Hunting Pollution, 2018, mural. Regenerative street art funded by Yoururban2030, and painted with AIRLITE, a paint which reduces heat and "eats smog" at this very busy intersection, Via del Porto Fluviale, Rome.The tricolored heron, an endangered species, is hunting in a polluted pool of water, fighting for survival.
Olafur Eliasson and Robert Montgomery, Grace of the Sun, 2021, is a “light poem” powered by 1,000 Little Sun lamps, which were disassembled and reused after COP26. "Calling for a massive turn toward solar power, the installation is an extension of Eliasson’s Little Sun project" which he began in 2012 and which has provided solar power and light to over 3 million people in Africa.
Global Warming Hourglass, BLU, street art, Berlin, 2012. (Painted over and replaced by an advertisement in 2014) Arresting image of an hourglass with a melting iceberg and drowning city instead of sand in a "particularly potent metaphor for global warming."
Putting Green, Brooklyn NY, 2021. The 18 holes were designed by various community groups atop a former industrial site on the waterfront, using sustainable materials and methods. They provide both entertainment and education through messaging about climate change. Proceeds go to NY nonprofit climate change organizations.
Jenny Holzer, Hurt Earth , 2021. This work launched at Tate Modern in London, then was shown at various locations in Glasgow during COP26. Light projections of texts by over 40 activists draw attention to the climate crisis. She is known for work that uses text to "invite public debate and highlight issues."
Moths to a Flame, Plymouth (UK) Art and Energy Collective, 2021. “As butterfly doth thrum the storm, might the moth then summon dawn.” A mass-participation installation of 20,000 moths made of milk bottles, plus recorded audio messages sent from all over the world, created a beautiful display of hope and community at the Glasgow Botanic Gardens during COP26.
Joseph Rossano, Salmon School, 2018-21. Installation in the delegates'dining room at COP26 consists of a school of "mirrored salmon-like forms, hand-blown from molten glass by artists and makers from around the world, all of whom are concerned by the plight of wild salmon." Working with the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA, the initial forms were created and a method was developed to "easily replicate versions of a salmon-like shape using blown glass." First-hand video accounts from renowned scientists, artists, and indigenous people accompany the glass display.
Xavier Cortada, Underwater HOA, 2018, one of his many participatory eco-art projects in the Miami area. He distributed yard signs for residents and painted intersections with students, with numbers depicting how many feet of melted glacial water would submerge those locations. The background designs on the signs are from artwork he made after a trip to the Antarctic in 2006 as a NSF fellow, the Antarctic Ice Painting series.
Bob Partington, Melting Panthers,2020. He's The History Channel's "Thingamabob" host, an award-winning inventor and artist. This wax sculpture of a Florida panther and her cub, melting rapidly in the heat and revealing the lettering "MORE HEAT LESS WILDLIFE," draws attention to how rising temperatures are affecting treasured Florida wildlife. Part of a CLEO Institute climate crisis campaign.
Maya Lin, Ghost Forest, May 10-Nov. 14, 2021, Madison Square Park, NY
49 dead Atlantic white cedar trees, 40 ft tall, have been "planted" in a forest arrangement. The trees, from Pine Barren NJ, were cleared from that fragile ecosystem after succumbing to salt water degradation. A soundscape of native species who once lived on Manhattan Island accompanies the installation. (Lin is famous for the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in DC)
Olafur Eliasson and Minik Rosing, Ice Watch, 2014, multiple locations, this photo is Paris. Blocks of off-shore Greenland ice were transported to public spaces to communicate the urgency of climate change. Left to melt as spectators feel global warming firsthand. He said "It is so abstract, it's so far away, it's literally out of our body and it's in our brain and I wanted simply to change that narrative of the climate from our brain and emotionalize it into our bodies."
