Annals of a Future World: considering sea level rise

Prints of these images were included in a two-artist show at Fountain Street Gallery: Geographies of a Shifting World.
I discuss the basis and methodology for this body of work in this blog post on the gallery website.

Project Statement

These images that are meant as harbingers from the future. They present the intertwining of ocean and shore environments as sea level rises. My selection of locations to photograph is informed by maps of projected sea level rise of 6 feet, a possibility by 2100. The mapping is visualized online by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

 Each image is a montage of two or more photographs. I have merged one photograph representing the current environment with other photographs representing a possible future. In the final montage the juxtaposition of time, before and after, is implicit. The composite image is not meant to be a scientific thesis, but a metaphor for a possible result of climate change. In some images it is easy to identify the elements of the individual photographs. In others, the blending of photographs creates an image that almost seems realistic. The ambiguities of scale and detail in the montage are intended to create a sense of discontinuity or unease. This unease mimics the way that we experience the current changes in climate. These changes are discoverable to greater and lesser degrees, and we are unsettled because we find it difficult to separate weather from climate; daily variation from long-term change. The world around us is ephemeral, and we must accept that. Our choice is whether to continue to be the agents of change at a disturbingly historic rate.

View Images

Resources

“Is Sea Level Rising”, NOAA Earth in the Future; Sea Level: Measurement and Recent Trends, Pennsylvania State University

“How We Measure Global Sea-Level Changes”, Australian Academy of Science. “Sea Level Change, Observations from Space,” NASA

“Climate Change: Global Sea Level”, NOAA