ClimateSense, Riverworks and Artistic Inspiration!

This is the third instalment in a series of blog posts by Climate Sense Intern Alexis Bulman, who is sharing monthly insights into her research, creative process and new Pageant initiatives inspired by climate change adaptation.

In these month-end blog posts I typically share a window into the creative process I’ve been pursuing through my ClimateSense position with The River Clyde Pageant, Creative PEI and The School of Climate Change and Adaptation. While my own art projects have continued to develop over the month of April, I also spent this month developing a call for public art submissions, Riverworks, which will provide a public-facing platform for artists to make works informed by climate change and adaptation. 

This month’s post will look a little different as I step away from my sketchbooks to share information on Riverworks, and artworks by Canadian artists whose work touches on environmental transformation, a theme at the forefront of Riverworks. I hope these works offer some inspiration for artists preparing their submissions for the May 7th deadline. If you have any questions regarding this project, send me an email at albulman@upei.ca

Riverworks Call for Submissions

As a component of the Community-Based Climate Action on Prince Edward Island Project, Creative PEI and The River Clyde Pageant have announced Riverworks, a call for public art proposals to accompany the construction of multiple living shorelines along the Hillsborough River, an initiative led by the PEI Watershed Alliance, the City of Charlottetown, and the Town of Stratford.

[Image description: an aerial photograph of a river in blues and greens with a transparent overlay. At the top in large blue letters “riverworks”, below it, smaller white text “call for submissions”. Centred brown text “Deadline: May 7th”, below it white text “art along the banks of the Hillsborough River”. A blue banner at the bottom with white text inside “www.riverclydepageant.com/Riverworks”]

Motivating the Riverworks call for submissions are PEI’s 1100 km+ of highly erodible sandstone coastline. The island’s shorelines face significant threat and degradation due to their sensitivity to sea level rise, storms and increased development.

Living shorelines are a nature-based solution to coastline protection. Mimicking natural processes, living shorelines slow erosion and are made with natural, biodegradable materials, such as woody debris, planted native species of trees, shrubs and grasses, all of which stabilize the shoreline. Living shorelines protect people, create habitat and demonstrate a new working relationship with the more-than-human world. 

Riverworks is looking for art that favours a soft approach; art that embodies the qualities of living shorelines. Proposed works can be sculptural, installation-based, performative or other. Typically, permanent public art must withstand time and weather, but Riverworks isn’t looking for a hard approach to public art. Instead, we’re interested in projects that engage with processes of ecological transformation such as growing, weathering, decaying, bio-degrading, and environmental shifts resulting from climate change.

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-130-mainstreet-pei/clip/15838430-alexis-bulman-riverworks-public-art-project

Funding is available to support two artists from PEI or the Atlantic Bubble. Successful artists will install their artwork this summer or fall at one of two predetermined sites along the banks of the Hillsborough River in PEI. Deadline for submissions is Friday, May 7th at 5pm, and you can find the complete call for submissions here.

Artists who Inspire

Here are five artists whose work I found inspiring and in alignment with the conceptual framework for Riverworks. Each of these artists explore nature in flux, site transformation as a form of performance, and art installations or sculptures where humans and landscape act as collaborators. I’ve highlighted one artwork by each artist, but I encourage you to click the links to see the full artworks, and explore the entirety of their portfolios.

Andrew Maize

Tidal Ladder (Minas Basin)
2011
Documentation by Clare Waque and Matthew Carswell

“A 32ft spruce ladder to be climbed with the incoming tide on the shore of Upper Economy in the Minas Basin. In loving memory of Thomas Young and Zoë Nudell. A big thanks White Rabbit Arts and everyone who helped install.” - Andrew Maize 

[Image Description: a black and white photograph of a group of people using rope and working together during low tide to erect a wooden ladder next to a large boulder. In the background cliffs are topped with trees and three houses. A sky filled with dramatic clouds fills the top ¾ of the photograph]

[Image description: photograph of a man sitting on a tall ladder erected by ropes in the Minas Basin, blue high tide water surrounds the man and his ladder. The background consists of blue sky and a darker blue horizon line]

Sara A. Tremblay

88 Days
2013
(Documentation credit: Sara A. Tremblay)

“A collection of 88 concrete spheres, made on the island of Gotland, Sweden, during a 3-month residency, in the summer of 2013. They are currently in the courtyard of Susanna Carlsten, who has only one rule: not to move them.” - Sarah A. Tremblay

[Image description: centred in the photograph is a small heaping sculpture of concrete balls sitting in shaded grass surrounded by dark leafy trees, the foreground is sprinkled in fallen leaves]

[Image description: a small heaping sculpture of piled concrete balls overgrown by grass and leaves is surrounded by dull grass]

Eric Moschopedis and Mia Rushton

Pick Pluck Perch
2020
(Documentation credit: Eric Moschopedis and Mia Rushton)

“This temporary public art work is centred around a gold gilded pear tree that is underplanted with companion plants and edible herbs. As the tree grows, the gold will crack and fall away, the art will break down, and the community will be left with a mature pear tree, berries, oregano, and thyme. Complementing the edible vegetation are granite boulders as seating and a reclaimed brick pathway that leads residents between the tree and a repurposed planter box. Commission by the City of Calgary Public Art Department.” - Eric Moschopedis and Mia Rushton

[Image description: a photograph with a gold gilded pear tree with green leaves in the foreground, a chain link fence and silver car in the background left, an out-of-focus street scape, brick path and boulders in the background right]

[image description: a photograph of a gold gilded pear tree that is underplanted with companion plants and edible herbs surrounded by silver protective caging. The ground is covered in grass, concrete, dark mulch, and three granite boulders. A brown brick pathway connects the gold tree and a black planter box in the right-hand side of the photograph. In the background there are cars in a parking lot and a woman walking who wears a red shirt, black pants and a yellow and cheetah print purse]

Lindsay Dobbin

Listener Ship
2016
(Documentation credit: Lindsay Dobbin)

“Listener Ship was an exploration of place-responsive architecture by considering the land as notation. How can a structure resonate with and fully embody the land? How can a structure be an instrument the land is speaking through? How can the artist be an instrument the land is speaking through? Using the practice of embodied listening, deadfall was collected through a snow covered landscape, and a listening space was constructed by the Bow River, allowing the small parts to inform the larger vision. The sculpture is a temporary space for people to gather, and will have it's own life as it slowly returns to the land.” - Lindsay Dobbin

[Image description: a large structure made of horizontally placed brown and grey branches overlooks a vast winter landscape of snow-covered evergreen trees and a distant mountain]

[Image description: centred in this photograph is a small, partially obstructed structure made of tree branches. Surrounding the structure is a dark forest landscape covered in a blanket of white snow, a footpath trails out from the structure]

Gerald Beaulieu

Watermark
2016
(Documentation credit: Gerald Beaulieu)

“11 wooden pilings, all at different measured heights, up to a maximum of three meters. They depict the height of the St. John River during various stages of flooding. The work is also designed to mark and withstand the seasonal spring flooding of the river. Commissioned by the City Of Fredericton, South Riverfront Trail.” - Gerald Beaulieu 

[Image description: eight rough-textured poles are erected beside a road, on a patch of gravel. The first four poles are turquoise and are lined up from shortest to tallest, the fifth pole is brown and is the tallest of eight pools, to it’s right three more turquoise poles are lined up in decreasing height. The poles are backed by mowed grass, green bushes, a blue stretch of water, a horizon line of dark trees and distant buildings and a blue sky with white clouds]

[Image description: blue-green water fills ⅓ of this photograph, topped by a deep blue horizon line of distant trees and buildings, above that is a light blue, cloudy sky. In the water 6 turquoise poles emerge from the water, each one casting a reflection of itself in the water]