Endangered Species
Lost & Threatened Plants and Animals
Species biodiversity is important to preserve resilience for the health of the planet, its ecologies, and human life. Pressure from human activities is causing an ever-accelerating threat to many different species of plants and animals. The giant panda or the polar Bear may be the most emblematic of critically endangered animals in the popular imagination, but many other charismatic animals are endangered by anthropogenic activities such as the blue macaw, Sumatran tiger, green sea turtle, spotted owl, and California condor. Still, they are only the top of an iceberg that includes countless insects critical to pollination as well as many other mammals and plants that attract less attention and reverence. At the time of this writing, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has assessed 120,372 species of animals and plants and have awarded the status of “threatened” to 32,441 — over 25 percent. The figures of species under threat of extinction are staggering. For example, 25 percent of mammals, 41 percent of amphibians, and 13 percent of birds.
Through many of her ecoart projects, Aviva Rahmani has flagged the crises that life on Earth faces, particularly over the ecosystems that protect both fresh and saltwater, such as estuaries She confronts the vital importance and interconnectedness of complex roles that different species play in healthy ecosystems. Many of her projects explore how art can catalyse change in the environment and positively impact or even reverse our movement toward plant and animal extinction.
Click the image to explore the virtual gallery showing ecoart images by Aviva Rahmani.
Blue Sea Lavender
Blue Sea Lavender (2009) was a series of events and performances in Maine based upon a mythical plant. The one-day event explored the loss of species diversity in the Gulf of Maine mediated through the narration of Blue Sea Lavender who has “lost my children, my family, my community, my home.” The event included consecutively singing Puccini's Vissi d'arte in a public preserve over a six-hour period. The day before, large drawings of the mythical plant were created on the sand of two local preserve parking lots using branches, rocks and water, knowing that cars would destroy the drawings, as people have destroyed many species across the earth.
The event was a sequence of performances during the one-day “site-specific" show curated by Pat Nick on August 19, 2009. A subtheme of the show was the celebration of recently installed wind power turbines on Vinalhaven Island to serve the Fox Islands.
Blue Sea Lavender Date: 2009 Size: 20” x 20” Materials: Drypoint printDescription: Created for the Site Specific exhibition curated by Pat Nick, Vinalhaven Island Maine.
Blue Sea Lavender detail on Echoes of the Islands Date: 2009 Size: 8’ x 5’ x 3’ Materials: Granite rock and casein paint slurry of ultramarine pigment and buttermilk powder, on two sculptures previously created by Aviva Rahmani. Description: One of five temporary installations on the topic of species loss for the Site Specific exhibition. Located at the Vinalhaven Ferry Terminal, Vinalhaven Maine. Photograph by Aviva Rahmani.
Blue Sea Lavender detail at Lane's Island Date: 2009 Size: 70' x 45' Materials: Branches, rocks and casein paint slurry of ultramarine pigment and buttermilk powder. Description: One of five fragile temporary installations on the topic of species loss for the Site Specific exhibition. Located at Lane’s Island Preserve Parking Lot, Vinalhaven Maine. Photograph by Aviva Rahmani.
Blue Sea Lavender detail at VHLT Date: 2009 Size: 85' x 40' Materials: Casein paint slurry of ultramarine pigment and buttermilk powder in sand. Description: One of five fragile temporary installations on the topic of species loss for the Site Specific exhibition. Located at Vinalhaven Land Trust parking lot, Vinalhaven Maine. Photograph by Aviva Rahmani.
Provenance:
Stills from Blue Sea Lavender were shown in the following exhibition: Blue Sea Lavender for Site Specific curated by Pat Nick, New Era Gallery, Fog Gallery and other locations on Vinalhaven Island, ME, 2009.
Publications:
Duncan, Jamie. “Contemporary Art That Beautifully Raises Awareness” ecosalon.com http://ecosalon.com/contemporary-art-that-beautifully-raises-awareness/ posted January 23, 2016.
Blued Trees
The Blued Trees project began in 2015 with a symphony. It is now an opera-in-progress called ‘Blued Trees, an opera’, (please click here to see Vimeo video: Blued Trees Opera ), with for a first iteration planned summer 2023, at the Parsonage Gallery, Searsport, Maine, in development with:
Catherine Filloux, librettist: https://www.catherinefilloux.com/
Julia Schwartz, composer: https://www.juliaschwartz.ch/biography
Lauren Petty & Shaun Irons, projectionists: http://allovereverywhere.automaticrelease.org/
The project has received support from the Pollock Krasner Foundation.
Blued Trees Symphony is a spatial and acoustic outdoor installation across North America, embodying trigger point theory. The installation covers many miles of proposed pipeline expansions, exploring how art, science, and law can change environmental policies about fossil fuels. The installation is composed of trees marked with a painted vertical sine wave. Each marked tree is GPS located, indicating an aerial musical score for an overture. Using copyright law, the artwork on the trees is protected, subsequently protecting the land from eminent domain takings for pipeline development.
The Blued Trees Symphony launched on the Summer Solstice, June 21, 2015, with an overture in Peekskill, New York. It is now installed in many miles of proposed pipeline expansions. Each 1/3 measure of those miles have been copyrighted for protection as a single work of art. Variations of each movement are based on an iterative score created for the overture. All installations are created at the invitation of landowners. The overture was accompanied by an international Greek Chorus at a total of twenty sites internationally. Individual trees were painted and musical variations of the score were performed to echo the theme of connectivity to all life. The score is simultaneously spatial and acoustic and concluded with a coda, a final movement that recapitulated and resolved previous formal themes, on the American presidential Election Day, November 2016.
The Peekskill site for the overture was chosen because the pipelines would pass 105 feet from the infrastructure of the failing Indian Point Energy Center, a nuclear facility thirty miles from New York City. The score corresponded to a pattern that would have prevented the movement of heavy machinery. The paint for each vertical sine wave is a casein slurry of nontoxic ultramarine blue and buttermilk that grows moss (based on a Japanese gardening technique).
Links:
Musical line of the overture for the Blued Trees Symphony Date: June 2015 Size: variable Materials: photoshop Description: The Algonquin (AIM) pipeline that was the subject of the Blued Trees Symphony. The overture was conceptualized as iterated measures of the score from the Blue Mountain Reservation to the infrastructure for the Indian Point nuclear facility, indicated in red to the left of the image, within 105’ of the pipeline. The corridor extends West under the Hudson River, and North and East across the remainder of New England. Aviva Rahmani with Daisy Morton.
Blued Trees Symphonic Score for a Forest Date: Composed 2015 Size: 1/3 mile of tree-notes Materials: Aerial map-score of the distribution of trees designated in woodlands for painting as tree-notes with a casein slurry of buttermilk and non-toxic ultramarine blue pigment. Description: The synesthetic pattern of each 1/3 mile “measure” of the symphonic musical line was designed as both a melodic refrain and to prevent the passage of heavy machinery in increments of 1/3 mile . The score was iterated, with variations based on terrain, at every site and with various instruments. Submitted as part of the copyright material to register the ,Blued Trees Symphony.Composed and mapped by Aviva Rahmani.
Bass Notes, Blued Trees Symphony Detail 3 Location Oneida County, New York Site 1 Date: October 2015 Size: Detail of 1/3 mile measure Materials: Trees painted with a casein slurry of buttermilk and non-toxic ultramarine blue pigment designed to grow mosses. Description: Detail of Blued Trees installation of the first symphonic movement of Blued Trees, on the second of three sites in Oneida County, New York, location of proposed Dominion New Market pipeline. Photo by Aviva Rahmani.
Blued Trees November 9 Detail 4 Date: 2015 Size: 1/3 mile Materials: Trees painted with a casein slurry of buttermilk and non-toxic ultramarine blue pigment designed to grow mosses. Description: detail of tree-notes from Blued Trees overture as seen Nov. 9, 2015, after submission of cease and desist notice to the Algonquin and Spectra pipeline corporations and in-plead to the court to protect the registered copyright on the overture. Photo by Erik McGregor.
Publications:
Denson, Roger. “Earth Day EcoArt Confronts Deforestation, Fracking, Nuclear Hazards In Eastern US Woodlands,” Huffington Post online publication available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/g-roger-denson/earth-day-ecoart-confront_b_9721354.html April, 21, 2016.
Williams, Wes. “Landowners Put Hope in Art Project to Combat Pipeline,” WVTF.org online publication available at: http://wvtf.org/post/landowners-put-hope-art-project-combat-pipeline#stream/0 April, 19, 2016
Collins, Shay. “Aviva Rahmani’s Blued Trees and the Fight Against Pipelines” The Cornell Daily Sun online publication available at: http://cornellsun.com/2015/12/03/aviva-rahmanis-blued-trees-and-the-fight-against-pipelines/ December 3, 2015.
Rahmani, Aviva. "Blued Trees on the front lines journal excerpts" The Brooklyn Rail online publication available at: November 5th, 2015.
Baumgardner, Julie. “Nine Artists Respond to Climate Change” Artsy online publication available at: September 22, 2015.
Steinhauer, Jillian. "Art to Stop a Pipeline" Hyperallergic online publication available at: September 9, 2015.
Rahmani, Aviva. “Blued Trees” CSPA Quarterly Issue 12, August 3, 2015.
Bogok, Gusti. “Art and Activism: The Blued Trees symphonic movement to put ‘public’ back in ‘public benefit’” readersupportednews.org online publication available at: http://readersupportednews.org//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32089 August 28, 2015.
Clarity. “’Blued Trees.’ Art to Stop a Pipeline?” Sane Energy Project online publication available at: July 26, 2015.
Fish Story
Fish Story (2013) emerged out of a series of discursive webcasts initiated by Rahmani in 2010, to Gulf to Gulf [HL1] . Fish Story was a participatory public art project about how the lives of fish in the Mississippi River reflect human challenges in the Anthropocene era. Fish Story events included bringing people together to embody and take the roles of different agents of change for a game about an ecosystem, including the roles of habitat, politicians, pollution, and racism, to invite new perceptions on causal effects. The project resulted in a deepened study of finding the “trigger point” where pollution flowing into the water system from Memphis to the eutrophying Gulf of Mexico might be mitigated.
The project applies Aviva Rahmani’s Trigger Point Theory to the bioregion of the Mississippi Water Basin from base in Memphis. The Gulf to Gulf team (Aviva Rahmani; Dr. Eugene Turner, LSU; and Dr. Jim White, UCB) was invited to create this project for Memphis Social by curator Tom McGlynn, cofounder of Beautiful Fields, which was awarded the domestic 2013 franchise support grant from apexart to produce Memphis Social.
The Gulf to Gulf team collaborated to show synergy between environmental factors, including climate change, affecting indicator species of fish in the Mississippi, in the vicinity of Memphis. Many people are not aware that fish are affected by all the same factors causing disruptive drought, storms, temperature extremes, and flooding worldwide that impact people. The team chose Memphis as a critical point between factory farms upstream and dead zones downstream in the Gulf of Mexico, affecting the survival of fish. Dr. Turner noted the “trigger point” for healing dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico is Iowa, because it's at the center of Midwestern factory farms releasing nitrogen into the water system flowing into the gulf. The goal of Fish Story was a series of events to support local and regional conservation and enhance restoration science. Fish Story's progress was tracked on Rahmani's blog, Pushing Rocks, in 100 posts. An outcome of this project was the rough mathematical calculation by Dr. White, based on what we knew in 2013, that if the Earth could be re-greened by 36 percent, we might mitigate climate change. More information can be found on the Gulf to Gulf website.
Opening the Arctic, Fish Story Date: 2012 Size: Variable Materials: Digital still generated with pen tablet and Photoshop Description: Mapping generated live during Gulf to Gulf webcast desktop sharing conversation on global warming, in preparation for Fish Story. The mapping was created to understand how opening the Arctic will affect dynamic relationships in the Northern hemisphere and fish in Memphis, TN.
X Fish Story River Painting in Installation Detail Date: 2013 Size: Installation 11' x 144' (132" x 1728") Materials: Acrylic paint on black paper with cut out handmade paper silhouettes of individual fish, photographs and mapping from previous workshop Description: Detail of Fish Story installation for Memphis Social at the Hyde Gallery, Memphis College of Art, Memphis, TN.
Fish Story Tributaries #4 Date: 2013 Size: 16" x 20" Materials: Encaustic on paper Description: Artifact from research for Fish Story on lowlands flooding in the outskirts of Memphis, TN.
Fish Story Canoeing the Wolf River Date: 2013 Size: Variable Materials: Digital photograph Description: Photograph taken from canoe by Dr. Eugene Turner in collaboration with Aviva Rahmani as they traversed the Wolf River towards the Mississippi River as research for a local trigger point. Rahmani directed then edited the shots. The canoe trip was the first of four Fish Story events for Memphis Social, curated by Tom McGlynn.
Provenance:
Stills from Fish Story were shown in the following exhibition: Memphis Social curated by Tom McGlynn of Beautiful Fields, Memphis College of Art's Hyde Gallery, Memphis, TN, May 10 – 18, 2013.
Publications:
Rahmani, Aviva. “Fish Story Memphis: Memphis is the Centre of the World”. Journal for Environmental Studies and Sciences [online] Vol. 4 (2; June): 176–179, 2013
Koeppel, Frederic. "'Memphis Social' Vast project spans breadth of city's arts scene." The Commercial Appeal [Memphis] 9 May 2013: 1M and 4M. Print, 2013.
Rahmani, Aviva. “A Community of Resistance: Collaborative Work with Science and Scientists.” WEAD Magazine. Online publication Issue 7, CREATING COMMUNITY, available at: http://weadartists.org/communities-art-science, 2014.
Hunt for the Lost
Hunt for the Lost (2020) is an ongoing online public art project provoking discourse around “the lost.” Materializing as an open-ended scavenger hunt, participants are asked to look for metaphorical and physical things that bear personal significance. Items include: “lost courage,” “lost heart,” and “lost forest.” “Lost____” signs were designed and displayed on Governors Island, playing off political campaign signage. Submitted “found” items from participants were collected and curated on the website huntforthelost.org, creating an alternative world of the “found.”.
Hunt for the Lost was a collective public art project, a container to consider what we have recently lost and what it might take to find what has been lost. It created an alternative discussion before and after the 2020 presidential election as counterpoint to the politically inflammatory exchanges current in the fall before the vote. This project isn’t just for artists. It’s for anyone struggling with current realities. Can you imagine an alternate reality? Click here to find out more: Hunt for the Lost.
