Blockfort presents Flickering on the Edge of Anthropocene, a curated exhibition of photographic works, each dealing with the topic of climate change. The exhibition is curated by Darren Lee Miller, Chair of the Department of Photography at the Columbus College of Art and Design. Artists in the show include Allison Maria Rodriguez (Boston, MA), Barry Underwood (Cleveland, OH) and Kathryn Vajda (Rochester, NY). The exhibition runs from October 2 - November 21.
This exhibition was originally scheduled to be part of the fifth FotoFocus 2020 Biennial. We are grateful that FotoFocus has generously pledged its financial support to make this show possible even though the biennial has been canceled due to the pandemic. This year’s theme, Exploring Light and Its Contrasts, considers the implicit signification of the word, “light.” According to Kevin Moore, FotoFocus Artistic Director and Curator, “Light implies a force of good, and it conjures hope, clarity, and rational thought.” “Flickering” evokes a flashing light, and indicates a warning sign as we exit the Holocene, the geological epoch of climate stability that gave rise to agriculture, civilizations, and our global economy.
The three artists in this exhibition contemplate our entry into the Anthropocene (Kolbert), an era when human activity is the dominant influence on the environment. Climate change is a social justice issue. Accelerating sea level rise and species extinctions, persistent droughts and flooding, food scarcity, lead poisoning -- and other environmental catastrophes that disproportionately impact people of color, and the poor, mostly non-white inhabitants of the “global south” -- are essential considerations in a time of social injustice, healthcare insecurities, and rising political discord.
About the Artists
When Allison Maria Rodriguez starts a project, she examines her intuitive emotional responses while simultaneously doing scientific and historical research. Using old family pictures, digital animations, drawings, NASA weather satellite images, and new footage shot in front of a green screen, Rodriguez draws connections between losses in cultural diversity and declining biodiversity. Elements of her video installations are often rooted in the contingencies of her Latinx and American identities, and how these are echoed in species extinctions and habitat degradation. While the content can be heavy, it is not without a sense of playfulness, mysticism, and hope.
Barry Underwood’s background in theatre influences the ways in which he uses carefully placed lights to interrupt and transform landscapes, creating a proscenium stage for the monocular view of his camera. The glowing lines and shapes reference histories of land use, and the naturally occurring features specific to each location. All of Underwood’s luminous interventions are based on research done during his immersion on the site, usually during an artist’s residency. The resulting images mix available light with illumination from Underwood’s site-specific installations to create uncanny, constructed photographs that tell the story of each place’s present and past.
Kathryn Vajda’s images of icescapes slowly melting in the late winter sun look like futuristic, extraterrestrial colonies. The structures document both Vajda’s deployment of accumulated ice and snow as an unconventional sculptural medium, and the time-based diminution of such a fugitive material in the environment. Upon closer inspection, the images explore the impact of disposable plastic and polystyrene packaging that are the molds from which the artist builds the frozen sculptures. Working with multiple exposures as stacks and layers in Photoshop provides Vajda with the opportunity to move beyond pictorial considerations, to create collages of time.
Time is not on our side. Even though this decade may be the last remaining off-ramp before we are locked into a feedback loop of ever more warming, 2020 allows us to clearly see the possible good we can still do. Congress is spending trillions for COVID economic recovery, but it’s hard to know just how much the US will spend to address climate change. Assuming politicians now understand the reality of an exponential curve, they should apply that awareness to the climate, and lead the way to a future in which subsequent generations can live. I hope that art -- especially that which raises awareness, effects positive change, and calls us to action -- is part of the legacy we leave behind. The planet doesn’t have to crash, we can still pull back before we reach the brink. Will we?