Survival - Curating in Public Space

GI Biennale

2022

Curated by Thwisha Shah

GI 2022

Curatorial Statement One of humanity’s toughest experiences is understanding climate change; the most important problem of our time. The impact of increased carbon emissions in the atmosphere continues to create havoc on the planet, from rising sea levels globally, forest fires, droughts, to hurricanes, and flooding. It is time that it is spoken about everywhere and reaches a larger mass of people in the simplest way possible.

Survival aims to display interactive installations, artwork and designs for individuals and communities to know and understand the impact of climate change and what we can do to adapt or mitigate it.

The main agenda of the exhibition is to turn the facts of climate change into acts and make people feel the effects of the facts through artwork and installations. The biennale is a combination of series of experiences through natural as well as artificial exhibits.

Source: https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/

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Graphics Professor Ed Hawkins is a professor of climate science at the University of Reading, United Kingdom, where he is Academic Lead for Public Engagement and is affiliated with the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS). On 9 May 2016, Hawkins published his climate spiral data visualization graphic, which was widely reported as having gone viral.

He designed Warming Stripes, the visualisation which has been used globally as a symbol for climate change. Warming stripes sometimes referred to as climate stripes, climate timelinesor stripe graphics, are data visualization graphics that use a series of coloured stripeschronologically ordered to visually portray long-term temperature trends.

Warming stripes reflect a “minimalist”style, conceived to use colour alone to avoid technical distractions and intuitively convey global warming trends to non-scientists.

Source: https://twitter.com/ed_hawkins/status/1349757841771552778

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warming_stripes

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Source: https://showyourstripes.info/s/globe

Source: https://showyourstripes.info/s/globe

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Sub-themes 1. Awareness - Capacity to engage emotions and to expand imaginaries of the future 2. Adaptation - How design can adapt to the changing climatic conditions?

3. Reuse - Reusing waste or recyclable material to make installations 4. Material Exploration - Sustainable material innovation 5. Digital - Interactive technological installations

Source: https://climateclock.world/

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Location on Governors Island I envision the exhibition to be accessible twice a year, summer and winter months, on Governor’s Island, for 15 days each.

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Reason: The GI Trust want to make the island accessible throughout the year, starting in 2021. This exhibit / public space will be an additional feature to draw the public to the Island.

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SE N SO RI AL AP M SY PL AT M E ER BI FO IA AN O O SI LI D OT S TY DI HE HO A R R US IE RE S E AL .C M O M LI W FE HA T C W AN AS /I YO SU S/ U RV W FE IL I EL VA I L AM IT BE L IN W LO A O TE C UR KI R N UN CI G IV TY C AR ER SE BO N IS C O N N EC TE D

It will be an outdoor as well as indoor experience for the visitors on the Eastern Development Zone.

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Idea is to bring in participants and installations, that explain work though visual effects, 7 8 sounds etc. I believe this sensorial experience helps convey the idea to a visitor better.

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RE ST AU BI RA EN N AL T W & E AT ST BA ER O R R ST E AT IO N

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AWARENESS REUSE ADAPTATION MATERIALS DIGITAL

GOVERNORS ISLAND PLAN

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Awareness Zaria Forman documents climate change with pastel drawings. She travels to remote regions of the world to collect images and inspiration for her work, which is exhibited world-wide. Forman currently works and resides in upstate New York, and is represented

by Winston Wächter Fine Art in New York, NY and Seattle, WA. “It is my life’s mission to convey the urgency of climate change through art. I travel to the Polar regions to capture the unfolding story of ice melt, and to the Equator to document the rising seas. My drawings explore moments of transition, turbulence, and tranquility in the landscape, allowing viewers to connect with places they may never be able to visit. According to behavioral psychology, we take action and make decisions based on our emotions, which art has the ability to stoke. My images overflow with details to draw the viewer in, and transport them.”

1. Lincoln Sea, Greenland, I belive it provokes the thought and visual imapct of the glaciers melting.

2. Represents like a doorway, it either represents that the glacier has melted or its the path through the glaciers toward a better future.

Source: https://www.zariaforman.com/drawings

Source: http://yourcreativepush.com/2017/07/interview-with-zaria-forman/

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Pekka Niittyvirta and Timo Aho Pekka Niittyvirta is an artist working at the intersection of photography, installation and other imaging technologies. He works on projects differing both in aesthetics and contents, forming a body of work that lays critical looks at our socially constructed realities.

His works are held in many museum and private collections: Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art / Finland; Serlachius Museum / Finland; The Palestine Museum / Ramallah, Helsinki Art Museum / Finland, The State art collection of Finland.

Timo Aho’s multifaceted practice explores man’s relationship to nature in rapidly developing technological society. Aho’s practice spans between sculpture, intervention and installation art. His work combines modern technology, traditional sculpture and painting, exploring concepts and ideas within a culturally unstable, saturated world.

They both are Finnish artists have shone an installation called Lines,– which cuts across the walls of a number of surrounding buildings – aims to serve as a visual warning of the long-term effects of climate change on the environment.

Source: https://niittyvirta.com/lines-57-59-n-7-16w/

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Adaptation Manav Gupta, an artist from Kolkata, has co-opted his art practice in paintings, poetry, music and sound to create one-minute films on climate change, sustainable development, ecosystems, and alternative energy projects. His biography states that global warming, man’s interference with nature and man’s disregard for environmental consciousness impact his work. He affirms the age-old sanctity of earth and clay, assembling everyday objects made by potters from across India to create huge installations that convey hope, passion, and the journey and transience of life. Using just a few types of functional items—the diya lamp, the kullad (clay) tea cup, and the chillum smoking pipe—he succeeds in creating something contemporary yet timeless in its ability to tell a powerful story.

Bees are an obvious or not so obvious link in the evolution chain and our sustainability.

This global beehive garden project is an environmental statement by the artist about biodiversity and its crucial linkages to sustainable development.

In this installation- called beehive garden, with a minimalistic approach, the artist depicts his philosophy in understated tones that touch deeply and reverberate, lingering in the mind long after the visual engagement ends.

Source: https://manavgupta.in/installations/

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Reuse Ruganzu Bruno graduated from Kyambogo University in 2010 with a Bachelors degree in Art and Industrial Design. He currently works as a visual artist and part time lecturer at Kyambogo University teaching painting and sculpture.

As an eco-artist, Bruno works predominantly with recycled material. In 2010 he founded Ecoart Uganda, a platform that supports environmental consciousness through visual art.

As a non-profit organization, Ecoart Uganda reaches out to the community to promote recycling and create environmental awareness.

Bruno’s award winning idea, to build an amusement playground from recycled material, took shape at a school in Kireka and opened in September. Bruno remains an organizer of TEDx events in Kampala.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2013/05/24/world/africa/playground-trash-ruganzu-bruno-uganda/index.html

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Designed by holdUP & BLOO NATION, The Waving Wall comprises of of over 1200, 19L water cooler bottles, demonstrating the vast journey water takes as well as the amount of water used in the production of certain products.

This installation attempts to help visualize the vast amounts of ‘invisible’ water required to produce these items using a very simple calculation: assuming that every water cooler bottle is filled, there would be approximately 22,800L of water based on this fact. This entire installation would only make up about 2 pairs of jeans or 5 beef steaks!

Source: https://www.archdaily.com/161837/the-waving-wall-of-chalkwell-holdup-bloo-nation

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Material Exploration Sophia Hamblin Wang is a cleantech COO, circular economy expert, speaker, university lecturer and diversity advocate. She is the Chief Operating Officer of Mineral Carbonation International (MCi), a technology platform that transforms CO2 into building materials and other valuable industrial products.

Sophia has been featured in ABC TV’s Q&A, The New York Times, Time Magazine, TEDx, The Australian Newspaper’s The Deal Magazine and was a delegate at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2020, WEF Pioneers of Change Summit 2021 and the UN Youth Climate Summit in New York 2019.

The company has designed and built three carbon reactor systems, including its flagship, a world-first global reference pilot plant in Newcastle, Australia – which transforms waste materials and emissions created by industrial processes – and hopes to lock away 1 billion tonnes of CO2 per annum by 2040.

Source: https://www.mineralcarbonation.com/news

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COLLABORATORS David Umemoto is a sculptor and architect from Montreal, Canada. In his artistic approach, he states that his miniature concrete works stand as studies about volume. At the juncture of sculpture and architecture, these miniature pieces evoke temporary buildings or monuments standing on far-away lands.

Source: https://www.materialdriven.com/blog/2016/5/20/between-sculpture-and-architecture-narrative-in-concrete-by-da-

Iran do Espirito Santo is a Brazilian artist, based in São Paulo. His work is included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He has exhibited at the Venice Biennale and the Bienal de São Paulo. Iran do Espirito Santo is well known for his minimalist sculptures that have a “meditative tranquility”. Playground, a minimalist concrete sculpture in the southeast corner of Central Park, showcases the best of do Espírito Santo’s signature style.

Los Angeles-based artist Mark Hagen foregrounds the interplay of materials, process, and form in his geometric, minimalistic paintings, sculptures and installations. Hagen finds inspiration in the breakdown of history, vision, and hierarchies and creates works by pushing common and utilitarian materials in directions which reveal the process of making.

Source: https://cumulus-studios.com/2010markhagen

Source: https://publicdelivery.org/iran-do-espirito-santo-playground/

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Artist, John Sabraw produces his own DIY pigments -- bold yellows and reds that are sourced from the oxidized sludge of abandoned coal mines. Rather than using imported iron oxide from China to make his paint colors, he taps into the water’s heavy metals left over from abandoned coal mines, bringing to light the region’s pollution problem in the proces. He collaborates with scientists on many projects, and one of his current collaborations involves creating paint and paintings from iron oxide extracted in the process of remediating polluted streams.

Source: https://www.johnsabraw.com/studio

Source: https://www.johnsabraw.com/studio

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Digital BREAKFAST is a Brooklyn-based robotic kinetic art studio led by artists Andrew Zolty and Mattias Gunneras.

VANISHING FORESTS: The Vanishing series explores how precious objects in our world can be fragile and shortlived based on our level of engagement and/or neglect. Temporary Forest explores the idea that only by taking action can we help prevent the devastation of global deforestation—with the black and white image representing the emptiness left by a lost forest, and the underlying green image representing a landscape saved.

The green image is revealed as one moves their hand/body in front of the piece, only to be swallowed again by the black and white image after a short time.

Source: https://breakfastny.com/works/vanishing-forest

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Thijs Biersteker creates interactive awareness installations about the world’s most pressing issues today. In his work he seamlessly combines scientific research and new technologies to deliver an empowering experience that is accessible both intellectually and technologically. His highly awarded immersive art installations, often described as eco - or awareness art, turn the impact of topics like climate change, air pollution, ocean plastic, and the Anthropocene into tangible experiences that travel the world to create awareness around these topics.

In collaboration with professor Stefano Mancuso we created an artwork that uncovers the symbiotic relationship of trees and their communication. In the garden of the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 12 sensors are connected to 2 trees.

Where real time tree “communication” , extensive photosynthesis calculations and C02 fluctuations in times of climate change. Where an algorithm generated a climate and tree communication influenced tree ring ever second.

Giving nature a visual voice in times of climate change.

Source: https://thijsbiersteker.com/symbiosia

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Thank you

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