Climate change is a reality of contemporary life and is leading to increasingly numbers of weather-related catastrophes. One of the many threats now facing humanity is severe flooding. Such threats have been, and continue to be, driven by harmful and destructive human activities that impair and change the climate, and amplified by housing councils that permit developers to build homes on floodplains along with other development pressures linked to humans moving in increasing numbers into urban environments.
With the climate emergency in mind, Toronto artist John Notten has created a series of styrofoam installations that are presently located in Ontario Place. On the one side they show the image of an iceberg and the other show homes, vehicles, and other urban architecture. As discussed in the artist statement, the installation is intended to offer:
… an opportunity for the viewer to consider connections between this provocative material, the image of floating icebergs, and those of half-submerged iconic institutions.
It was particularly special to have a pair of kayakers visit the exhibit at the same time that I was there. Their presence—and my effort to present them as blurred subjects—helps to give a sense that climate change affects all subjects—all people—and isn’t something that is linked to any one specific subject. In essence, I wanted to convey that all humans are threatened by climate change and that focusing on individuals and their efforts does not adequately appreciate the structural and collective drivers that endanger all life on Earth.
Over Flow will be in Ontario Place until October 31, 2021, and will then be moved to other locations in the spring of 2021.
All images were made using an iPhone 12 Pro and the Noir filter, and then slightly edited using a filter in Darkroom.
Excited Pixels 