This is Where it Might Get Sticky

14”x11” Detail of “The Blued Trees Symphony” GIS print on paper with colored pencils and gold leaf 2022

I have been thinking about sea level rise for a long time but only recently took a more detailed look at exactly how humans and other species might interact with rising waters. It’s going to be complicated. Not just the forced (“managed”) retreat from the edges of the sea of entire urban centers, but all the contamination of waters we will leave behind as we flee and the saltwater intrusion into freshwater aquifers. Then there will be the tangles of other species negotiating purchase in the shifting landscapes as sea creatures move inland and land creatures mix it up with humans in ever tighter population clusters.

When I first made GIS prints of The Blued Trees Symphony, I only imagined how the musical score across continents might embody biological continuity and make national boundaries irrelevant. But when I started to detail in the habitat zones with colored pencils and the patterns of human density with gold leaf, it became apparent that the chaos of species of all kind negotiating shifting coastal zones would interrupt my neat musical notation and really make a mess of life for everyone and everything for a long time to come. I suspect this will happen faster than we will be prepared for, more violently and more erratically than we could adapt to in anyone’s lifetime. I imagine the impacts.

My work on these prints has advanced slowly as I’ve considered how relationships will change and how to represent them. It took me three months to get as far as a series of test prints I could work into before I tackle the final map. The work is for Various Small Fires Gallery. It will take another three weeks to complete the prints and send them. I imagine I will learn more by then and if the show is seen and reviewed, someone else might learn something too.