By Lisa Reindorf
This show features artists who eschew depression and pessimism; it brings together works that emphasize an optimistic view of where we are by dramatizing ways in which we can develop a more empathetic connection with the struggling environment.
Nurture: Empathy for the Earth, on view through December 14 at the UMass Boston University Hall Gallery. Artists include: Resa Blatman, Erin Genia, Amy Kaczur, Michelle Lougee, Andrew Mowbray, Sheida Soleimani, Bethany Taylor, Nancy Valladeras, and Christopher Volpe. Public Reception: October 26 from 5 to 7 p.m. with a performance of Fantastic Planet by poet Helina Almonte.
Resa Blatman, The Water Project /Rising Tide, 2016-present, latex paint on hand-cut mylar. Photo: J.M. Leach Photography
The UMass Boston show is curated by Gallery Director Sam Toabe and is part of an academic conference, “Thinking about Climate Change: Art, Science, and Imagination in the 21st Century,” organized by Dr. Margaret Hart and Senior Lecturer Carol G.J. Scollans. In the confab, scientists, artists, public policy representatives, and others will discuss a transdisciplinary focus on climate change. You can register for the free, two-day conference (which takes place on October 25 and 26) here.
Andrew Mowbray, Wind Driven Drawing Machine. 2015–present. Photo: J.M. Leach Photography
Art about climate change can spawn a range of emotions as well as communicate scientific insights as it deepens (hopefully) our collective sense of connection to the Earth and its ecosystems. Few can deny that we are living at a time of a global climate emergency: record heat waves, strong hurricanes, drought, flooding and other catastrophes. It is very easy for artists to despair, given the slow pace of amelioration driven by political and cultural recalcitrance. So it is understandable that the climate crisis has inspired a plethora of disturbing and demoralizing art works. Critical opinion is predictably mixed as to whether such visions of harsh realities — of now and the future — encourages action or paralysis.
In contrast, Nurture: Empathy for the Earth is not about hand-wringing: the show features artists who eschew depression and pessimism. It features work that emphasizes an optimistic picture of where we are by dramatizing ways in which we can develop a more empathetic connection with the struggling environment. According to the curator, the selection “examines how art can deepen our psychological and spiritual responses to the climate crisis”. Rather than the usual doomsday scenarios, the exhibit focuses on understanding, sympathy, and projecting visions of a better, healther world.
In Amy Kaczur’s multiple screen video The Messages from the Marsh, the viewer is immersed in the complex environment of a marsh. You hear the sound of nature, see its visual abundance — you can almost smell the salt water. According to the artist, the videos were shot in coastal marsh locations on America’s East Coast, areas that are projected to be lost underwater by 2050 through a lethal combination of sea level rise, tides, and storm surge.
Bethany Taylor, Unraveling Ecologies: Gulf of Mexico Spill (Deepwater Horizon). 2015-2024. Photo: J.M. Leach Photography
Kaczur works at MIT as an administrator at research labs focused on air and water pollution, which means that her art’s looks at climate change reflect considerable scientific knowledge. Her videos were developed via site-specific research, but they go well beyond the empirical: these images are mesmerizing, and the multiple screens amplify their impact.
Bethany Taylor’s Unraveling Ecologies examines the idea of landscape, not simply as the site for the sublime, but as an ever-changing concept because of natural processes and human intervention. Influenced by European tapestries (from the 16th to the 18th century), her works dramatize the jeopardy our earth faces, but via an unusual, and beautiful, form. A series of weavings end in a tangle of threads on the gallery floor.
The majesty of the ocean is invoked in Resa Blatman’s The Water Project / Rising Tide. In this site-specific installation, an ocean swell looks as if it is about to break through the glass façade of the gallery: a wall of water looms over viewers, a dynamic conflation of waves that twist and unfurl. Made out of multiple layers of painted and laser cut vellum, this work was created after the Somerville-based artist sailed up the west coast of Norway during an artist residency. The Water Project / Rising Tide expresses concern for the effects of climate change by dramatizing the vulnerability as well as the fierce power of nature. While the piece suggests an endangered future of flooding and inevitable change, it also testifies to resilience of ocean life.
Michelle Lougee’s Souvenir Series, 2022-2024 mixes and matches organic materials with discarded post-consumer plastic in ways that create a juxtaposition that is both jarring and humorous. Each souvenir piece is arranged to look like a “cabinet of curiosities,” a once accepted approach for displaying scientific items.
Her work highlights the fragile relationship between humans and the environment as well as the presence of ‘forever ‘plastics in natural settings. “I want people to think more about the environment, how to care for it, and ways to reduce your plastic consumption,” she notes in the show. Humor, hope, and loss coexist in a work that is simultaneously about past, present, future — organic nature and artificial material interminged for all time.
Artist Sheida Soleimani is well known for her photographic tableau process, where she combines printed images, sculptures, figures, and objects. The artist’s home and studio in Providence, R.I., serves a number of purposes, including as a wildlife clinic. In this recent series, she stages both living and recently dead birds she’s cared for. In the three works on display, Remorse, Safekeeping, and Egress, she conveys her strong empathy for the vulnerable animals that have been brought into her clinic, often as a result of harmful human impacts on wildlife.
Sheida Soleimani. Left to right: Remorse, 2023; Safekeeping, 2022; Egress, 2024. Archival pigment prints with artist altered frames. Photo: J.M. Leach Photography
Wind Driven Drawing Machine is a fascinating experiment by artist Andrew Mowbray. Inspired by the instruments made by the pseudo-scientists of the French Enlightenment, he has put together an artwork that utilizes the wind to make drawings. This kinetic sculpture is powered by the wind, which moves a mylar covered drum. Pens mark up the mylar, a record of the wind’s activity. The horizontal scratchings detail the wind’s direction while the vertical scratches denote the wind’s strength. The Machine‘s drawings are installed in the gallery. The device itself (which you can see above) is temporarily located on the harbor of the UMass campus.
Lisa Reindorf is an architect and artist whose work deals with climate change. She lectures frequently at art and environmental conferences, and is also an arts writer for such publications as Hyperallergic and Miami New Times.
