{"id":498,"date":"2017-05-15T14:02:53","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T14:02:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arcticincontext.com\/?p=498"},"modified":"2021-07-30T23:02:12","modified_gmt":"2021-07-30T23:02:12","slug":"bearing-witness-to-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/2017\/05\/15\/bearing-witness-to-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Bearing Witness to Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cover<\/em> of<\/em> catalog\u00a0<\/em>for Diane Burko\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0upcoming\u00a0<\/em>exhibition<\/em>, <\/em>Glacial Shifts, Changing Perspectives:\u00a0Bearing Witness to Climate Change\u00a0at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville Arkansas, May 4 to Sep. 30.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

This article was previously published by\u00a0<\/em>Scientific American<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Documenting the effects of global warming, Diane Burko\u2019s newly released book, <\/em>Bearing Witness to Climate Change, presents her images of vanishing glacial landscapes through paintings and photography. To learn more about the driving force behind Burko\u2019s vivid depictions of the changing natural environment\u00a0see<\/a>\u00a0\u201cDiane Burko: Visualizing Arctic Transitions,\u201d which appeared in Arctic in Context in September 2014.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

By Diane Burko<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am an artist devoted to communicating issues of climate change through my practice. For the past decade, I\u2019ve been documenting the dramatic disappearance of glaciers in large-scale series of paintings and photographs developed in close collaboration with glaciologists. It\u2019s a symbiotic relationship: I want my work to accurately reflect the science and the urgency of climate change, and they want me to help them explain their science to the public through my art.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t begin my career with such a goal. Instead, I just wanted to experience and depict the natural wonder of our world. As a New Yorker, growing up in apartment buildings, the landscape\u2019s open spaces and monumental geological phenomenon were particularly attractive. But expressing the beauty of our environment eventfully wasn\u2019t enough. By the turn of this century I felt compelled to do more, to make my creativity contribute to saving our planet. Now my goal is to seduce through the magic of the image, while at the same time introducing visual elements to elicit\/motivate awareness. I want the viewer to confront and comprehend the dramatic pace of ecological change and share with me the urgency I feel.<\/p>\n

At the outset, I collaborated with scientists who generously provided their archival material, such as chronological records of glacial degradation (repeats), and visual material mapping glacial recession, as well as Landsat imagery from USGS, NASA, and NOA. Eventually I needed to participate directly\u2014so finally, I decided to \u201cbear witness\u201d\u00a0to\u00a0the three largest ice fields in the world. In 2013, I explored Svalbard and Ny-Alesund, and Antarctica\u2019s Peninsula; in 2014, Greenland\u2019s Jakobshavn and Ilulissat Glaciers; and in 2015, I returned to Antarctica as well as Argentina\u2019s Patagonian ice fields. I have just returned from a two-month journey to Australia and New Zealand\u2019s fast-melting Southern Alps. This on-site experience enriches and informs my work leading to exhibitions that\u00a0begin a dialog with audiences not initially interested in science.<\/p>\n

My exhibition, \u201cShifting Glaciers, Changing Perspectives: Bearing Witness to Climate Change,\u201d will be on display the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas, from May 4 to Sep. 30, 2017, in conjunction with\u00a0Artosphere<\/a>, an annual regional festival that celebrates artists influenced by nature. An\u00a0exquisitely designed book<\/a>, including three essays, documents highlights from the last decade of my practice.<\/p>\n

Here are some examples from this show:<\/p>\n

\"Bearing<\/p>\n

Diane Burko on Mt. Cook snow field, Feb. 24, 2017<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Mt. Cook snowfield was one of the locations along with Franz Josef and Fox Glacier and the Tasman Neve in the Southern Alps of New Zealand that I explored this past February 2017.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Bearing<\/p>\n

Viedma Landscape, 2015<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Archival inkjet print, 40 x 60 inches<\/p>\n

This was taken while on expedition to Argentina\u2019s Patagonian ice field in January 2015. After traveling with Students on Ice to the Antarctic Peninsula, I flew from Ushuaia to El Calafate to explore the third-largest icefield in the world. Viedma the one of the glaciers there receding at the most accelerated rate.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Bearing<\/p>\n

Perito Moreno Glacier, Patagonia Argentina, Jan. 3, 2015. Archival inkjet print, 30 x 30 inches Perito Moreno was another glacier that I visited during that 2015 expedition.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Bearing<\/p>\n

Petermann Calving, Aug. 16, 2010 (after NASA), 2012<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Oil on canvas, 60 x 72 inches, Collection of Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University<\/p>\n

In 2010 a large section broke off the Peterman Glacier, losing about one quarter of its 40-mile-long floating ice shelf. I followed its progress through NASA\u2019s Earth Observatory site and made a series of paintings about this mass of ice, at least four times the size of Manhattan as it traveled south past Newfoundland.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Bearing<\/p>\n

UNESCO National Heritage II and Modis 2009 III, 2015<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Oil on canvas, 42 x 72 inches (left), 42 x 42 inches (right)<\/p>\n

This painting is part of a four-panel piece relating to the extreme calving of ice from Jakobshavn Glacier on the west coast of Greenland\u2014considerably south of Petermann. Its ice continues to contribute to critical sea level rise.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Bearing<\/p>\n

Landsat Series<\/em>, 2015<\/p>\n

Oil and Flashe Paint, each 20 \u201cx20,\u201d overall: 40 x 80 inches<\/p>\n

This series of paintings was inspired by my studying Landsat images having to do with the polar regions. Visual data from satellites are not only informative to scientists, but are also illuminating to my art practice.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Bearing<\/p>\n

Arctic Melting, July 2016 (after NASA)<\/em>, 2016<\/p>\n

Oil and mixed media on canvas, 60 x 84 inches<\/p>\n

This is a very recent painting whose source was the dramatic north pole ice melt charted by NASA in the summer of 2016. It also includes a new material I have begun to incorporate in my work, which I find to be metaphorical. The show at the Walton Arts Center highlight this new development, as does the cover of the catalog.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Bearing<\/p>\n

Detail, Arctic Melting, July 2016 (after NASA)<\/em>, 2016<\/p>\n

Oil and mixed media on canvas, 60 x 84 inches<\/p>\n

Perhaps this close-up detail of that painting more clearly explains how the surface refers to the cracking of ice in the Arctic sea. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Diane Burko is a painter and photographer. Since 2006, Burko\u2019s practice has built on the intersection of art and science, focusing on monumental geological phenomena and issues of climate change.<\/em><\/p>\n

[Photos courtesy of Diane Burko]<\/p>\n

This article first appeared on the World Policy Institute website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cover of catalog\u00a0for Diane Burko\u2019s\u00a0upcoming\u00a0exhibition, Glacial Shifts, Changing Perspectives:\u00a0Bearing Witness to Climate Change\u00a0at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville Arkansas, May 4 to Sep. 30.\u00a0 This article was previously published by\u00a0Scientific American. Documenting the effects of global warming, Diane Burko\u2019s newly released book, Bearing Witness to Climate Change, presents her images of vanishing glacial landscapes<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-culture-society"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1685,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions\/1685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/aic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}