Searching for a Safe Planet from Extinction!
MEDIUM:
Assemblage, canvas boards sand painted, collage, glass marbles, graphics, acrylic paint.
ARTWORK:
16″ x 20″ x 1¼”
FRAME:
Frame pending.
Reserved for exhibition.
Note: Refer “Red List” for threatened species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Cambridge, United Kingdom. Technical assistance in producing the artwork by Jenn Merrill, website designer.
Research Sources:
- Wilson, Edward: The 8 Million Species We Don’t Know, N.Y. Times, March 4, 2018
- Kelbaugh, Casey: Hotter Seas Cloud King Penguins’ Future, N.Y. Times, March 2018.
- Robbins, Jim: Building an Ark for the Anthropocene, N.Y. Times, September 28, 2018.
- Smith, Roberta: Art for the Planet’s Sake at the Biennale, N.Y. Times, May 2015 (refer quote below).
- Joseph, Yonette: Rare Giraffes Cause Stir in Kenya, New York Times, (date to follow).
Noah in Space is dedicated to evolutionary biologist, Edward Wilson, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University.
Roberta Smith:
“All the World’s Futures” brings out into the open a central preoccupation of the moment, namely the limiting belief that art is not doing its job unless it has loud and clear social concerns, a position whose popularity has made “social practice” the latest new thing to be taught in art schools.
DRAFT
“…to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before.”
1. Star Trek-The Starship Enterprise
Artist Note: Earth during the Anthropocene Age was inhabited by some 8.7 million species struggling against extinction on a once blue planet that is now a grey planet suffering from rampant pollution, loss habitat, and rising oceans, etc. 2. 3. The once intelligent stewards responsible for preserving the environment and life on this planet no longer have time to save it.
It has been raining for over forty days and as the rising oceans flood the land mass extinctions are happening. Years before this calamity, Noah a shipwright using wood and nails built an ark like spaceship he named Paradise. The spaceship is populated with two or more of each species needing to be saved from drowning. 4.
The spaceship has adequate provisions for an eternity and consists of multiple decks for holding the occupants. Once in space he began searching for a safe planet his precious cargo could inhabit and be free from extinction. Periodically, he allowed one of each species time on the top deck as lookouts for a blue planet they could call home.
Artwork: Noah in Space is a metaphor for the existential threat and extinction of all species on Earth. When does a metaphor during desperate times become an alternative reality. The current search for alternative exoplanets by the “Transiting Exoplant Survey Satellite”or TESS informs us this is now happening. 5.
Footnotes: 1. The speech given by William Shatner before Star Trek episodes. 2. Kolbert, Elizabeth: The Sixth Extinction, An Unatural History, Henry Holt Co. N.Y. N.Y., 2014. 3. ____, How Many Species on Earth, About 8.7 Million, Science Daily News, www.sciencedaily.com August 24, 2011 & Census of Marine Life. The 2019 human population is estimated at 7.7 billion. 4. Robbins, Jim: Building an Ark for the Anthropocene, New York Times, Sunday, September 28. 2014. 5. Overby, Dennis: For NASA’s TESS, Another Day Another Exoplanet, Science Times, New York Times, January 15, 2019.
Note: The word Anthropocene is derived from the Greek meaning, “recent age of man.” The proposed Anthropocene Epoch is when humans began adversely impacting Earth’s geological and environmental systems (i.e. climate change, pollutants, habitats, etc.). Refer The International Union of Geologic Sciences.