Curated by Kate Gorringe-Smith
Heather Hesterman
RISING
2017
Engraved timber, acrylic paint, wire
Dimensions approx. 3.5m x 2m
“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950’s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and oceans have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, and sea level has risen.” IPCC, 2014: Climate Change 2014: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Report, Geneva, Switzerland, Summary for Policymakers,1.1.p.2
Our landscape is restless and a storm is coming.
In 1940 Walter Benjamin prophetically wrote about the ‘angel of history’ who faces the past while wreckage upon wreckage is thrown at his feet. History is a pile of debris that we see as a series of events but the angel sees it as one single catastrophe. The angel would like to stop to fix or make whole what has been smashed. However a storm is blowing from paradise blowing him backwards into the future. This storm is called Progress.1
The image of the angel watching our historic debris pile high unable to act as he is being propelled backwards has a strong poetic and visual resonance. The hindsight of history only serves if you do not repeat what has gone before, however the IPCC has analysed the past, like the angel, and has gazed into our future issuing predictions and projections. Our debris is reaching to the heavens and this storm is an extreme weather event with no signs of abating.
RISING utilises data from the National Tide Centre and the IPCC 5th report 2014, to construct mean sea levels documenting current and future sea levels. Projected rises of CO2 levels in the atmosphere with concentrations from 700-1500 parts per million is predicted for 2100, currently 420.14 parts per million as of 29 Jan 2023. The timber markers are a tangible and visual cue showing increases of mean sea levels if green house gases continue to be released into the atmosphere unabated. Rising sea levels are impacting coastal and tidal zones that are essential for shorebird habitats.
Acknowledging science data and creating a visual form allows each marker to act as a visual prompt, this global phenomenon is visible at a human scale. The markers symbolise ocean acidification, warming, loss of species and habitat offering a simple visual warning.
- Benjamin,Walter.1969.Illuminations,ed.Hannah Arendt, trans.Harry Zohn (New York) Schocken Books cited in Haynes, Deborah J.1997.The Vocation Of The Artist. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,p.224.
Heather Hesterman 