Tag Archives: #art

Kintsugi: Repairing Our Damages (Art)

blue by Mo Muzammal
color by Mo Muzammal
white by Mo Muzammal
divided by Mo Muzammal

In attempting to post a creative segment for my “blog post” this week, I was reminded of the cost of giving into the charms of contemporary technology, specifically the ways in which artists, especially those working with more technologically advanced mediums (such as film or photography) can lose sight of the overall damage left behind by the remnants of such a technology. In chapter four of T.J. Demos’ book, Against the Anthropocene, Edward Burtynsky’s Oil Fields #27, Bakersfield, California, USA is described as a photograph wherein “technology merges with nature, unified aesthetically, composing a picture that is, monstrously, not only visually pleasurable…” (65).

Though Burtynsky acknowledges the dangers of Climate Change, he does not see the full repercussions of the moment. Despite this, Burtynsky’s art is beautiful and tends to evoke strong feelings from the viewer. However, Burtynsky’s photographs “naturalize petro capitalism” with their framing choices and editing.

Therefore, I found it liberating to work on my art pieces with the desire to perhaps open the door to more pressing discussions and questions about Modern Art and Climate Change. In these works, I use super imposition along with other photo editing techniques to try and make sense of the paradox of working with advanced technology, of having to give in to different media platforms upon which capitalism has made its mark, to ultimately critique the system by showing the ways in which it fractures the world. In this series of photographs, I seek to find a balance between our world and the one outside of us, hoping the worlds can be reconciled through the “putting together” of disparate parts (in this sense, Art is contrary to Capitalism which, despite appearing to also “put together” the world’s disparate parts through the global supply chain, only further fractures and divides the world through growing inequality and growth models which exploit the environment). 

Influenced by “Kintsugi,” the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending broken areas with various materials (lacquer, gold, silver, platinum), this artwork is aesthetically fractured, but whole, desiring to repair our world through the stitching of its various broken and damaged parts. In this sense, photographic superimposition is a symbolic reification of a harmonious repair of what is left and what is damaged.

I hope everyone enjoys this “Climate Change/Art” post and ponders interesting questions and thoughts on the project.

Through the Climate Artist’s Lens

Following are profiles of a few climate artists and how their works explore our relationship with the environment. Though the artists mentioned here create various types of work, this blog focuses on their installations in urban spaces where we are most likely to forget our relationship with nature.

River Rooms by Stacy Levy, 2018

STACY LEVY – The site specific installations of Stacy Levy visualize natural elements such as wind, rain, sunlight, and waterways. These installations are weaved into urban design and placed in public spaces. They invite the public to interact with the natural world that lives and breathes alongside them, but is often unnoticed. Levy’s series of works called Tides are installed in city parks. “River Rooms” are boat shaped structures placed along the Schuylkill River. They allow people of the city to sit by the river and observe it all year round. Similarly, “Tide Field” in the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia and “Tide Flowers” in the Hudson River in New York are floating devices that respond to the river’s tides. They change based on how high or low the water in the river is. Both installations are placed where city dwellers can see the rivers change throughout the day. It’s a reminder that the rivers are alive even in densely populated urban areas.

Reduce Speed Now! by Justin Brice Guarriglia, 2019

JUSTIN BRICE GUARRIGLIA – Messages about the existential crisis of climate change are brought to public spaces through Justin Brice Guarriglia’s LED light installations and marquees. Guarriglia reminds us that “We are the asteroids” that are threatening our world. His project, Eco-Haikus for Marquees, places haikus about climate change at the entrance of theaters in Los Angeles and New York City. Guarriglia draws inspiration from the writing of Bruno Latour and attempts to make abstract ideas about climate change more accessible to the public. Reduce Speed Now is another project of Guarriglia’s. It’s an installment of solar powered LED lights that share messages from climate activists, artists, philosophers from around the world. This project was created for a 2019 Earth Day event in London and it invited the public to share their own messages through the LED light installations during the event.

Ice Watch by Olafur Eliasson, 2015

OLAFUR ELIASSON – When looking through the images of Ice Watch and how people interact with it, we see a combination of spectacle and mourning. Olafur Eliasson created Ice Watch, an installation, by transporting floating icebergs from the fjords of Greenland to public spaces in London and Paris. It confronts the public with the fact that the glaciers are melting in a more intimate way. The installation evokes the cathartic feeling of time running out and watching something bigger than us slowly fall apart. While walking through these icebergs, some people are in awe and can’t help but take selfies with them. Others kiss, hug, or hold the icebergs in a regretful way because they understand what we’re losing. For most of us, the melting glaciers is something that is happening far away. Watching videos of glaciers melting in the news or in documentaries doesn’t begin to describe the profoundness of this loss and the danger associated with it. Eliasson tries to change that with “Ice Watch”.