Aviva Rahmani: Cities and Oceans of If:

 

   What if ... there were abundant birds, fish, and clean water?
   ... our needs for clean water and food were protected?
   ... we planned for water?
   ... all the marshes, where fish and birds are born, were restored?
   ... we designed the oceans with adequate space for dolphins and whales?

Imagine, ecoartist Aviva Rahmani suggests, not the perilous world many scientists believe we inhabit, but a beautiful and utopian future based on a world of "If." She believes we can bring the needs of our daily lives into harmony with those of the earth. In her newest project, the "Cities and Oceans of If," Rahmani aims to show that one person, one place can significantly impact a whole environment. Rahmani's work visually and poetically demonstrates the profound cumulative effect of one individual's actions through small, incremental steps, even in this age of globalization.

The "Cities & Oceans of If" is based on Rahmani's research and collaborative work with scientists on the relationship between habitat protection and water conservation. She looks at the interdependence between coastal cities, the oceans, and inland wildlands. Hoping to redesign our failing water systems, Rahmani envisions an alternate future that could positively affect cities and their environs.

In the "Cities and Oceans of If," Rahmani locates ecological acupuncture points to effect healing change. Working on both sides of the North Atlantic Ocean, Rahmani then relates these points to each other. "Cities and Oceans of If" is, according to Rahmani, Abased on the idea that small, connecting corridors can have dramatic implications; that our urban-rural life has been disrupted, threatening our very survival. At the crux of this relationship is water."

Ecoart is a vehicle for the artist to engage local scientists, city officials and the average citizen in discussions about these and related issues outside of the public policy arena. Rahmani believes that when art is married to the sciences, environmental issues can be clarified and solved in ways that are intuitive, imaginative, and realistic.

Ecoart is layered with public process. It combines disciplines and looks at practical solutions. These can enhance future ecological health by way of substantive innovations. While each city has a unique set of problems and solutions, the habitat linkages Rahmani identifies reconnect urban and rural life.

 

The Process

Rahmani begins her work by studying geographical and industrial patterns, often referring to GIS (Geographical Information Systems) mapping. This identification process is followed by residencies at colleges and universities in each area, where she continues to gather data and resources. The keystone territories in each community, according to the artist, can have a catalytic impact on the entire system if they are ecologically restored.

In the course of each residency, Rahmani presents a public talk on the history of ecological art and the direction of her own work. In addition to data collection, the residencies offer her the opportunity to meet local residents, whom she invites into the process of discovery and education. She conducts extensive research about the area by visiting sites and historical societies, taking photographs, sketching, writing, and talking to as many people as possible, including environmentalists, local planners, and scientists.

Next in this process, she extrapolates from historical evidence of pre-settlement large predator animal migration routes and waterways. She compares these findings with geological, urban, and scientific studies to reveal large landscape visual patterns. At this point, Rahmani projects solutions for clean water and fisheries, by seeing where the human infrastructure can be altered to accommodate natural movements. Based on this work, in each city she connects and organizes teams of people already at work restoring and conserving environmental values. Seeking fresh impressions and acting as a conduit who focuses local concerns, Rahmani's efforts generate unique solutions. Scientists, local inhabitants, urban planners, professors and students all play major roles in this conceptual performance piece.

This multidisciplinary approach results in visual representations of Rahmani's own observations of the locale and her ideas for change. Artifacts from her research are displayed in public exhibitions and scanned into her web site for public response.

After each residency, Rahmani follows up with a public exhibition and, often, a second public talk. These are opportunities to discuss the actual progress made towards a redeemed future for the area.

Rahmani's connections to scientists and their institutions include Michele Dionne, Director of Research at the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve, Wells, Maine, Sean Todd, Director of Research at Allied Whale, College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, Maine and as a member of the Steering Committee of the Gulf of Maine Information Exchange (GOMINFOEX).

Moving from micro to macro views "in a kind of art-life theatre Rahmani literally creates an on-site Aearth restoration drama." AIf we can imagine a better alternative," Rahmani says, Athen we can move towards it. The environment was lost by increments; it can be restored by increments."

 

Genesis of the "Cities and Oceans of If"

The "Cities and Oceans of If" began as a series of city redesigns in the Gulf of Maine, near Rahmani's own year-round residence. She has studied and proposed redesigns for Liverpool, England, St. John, Canada, and Philadelphia and is beginning to look at cities framing the Pacific Ocean, starting with San Francisco. Her goals are always to heal the land, restore it to its original vitality, supply adequate clean water with minimal filtration costs, and rebuild integrated environmental systems for animals, plants, and humans.

All of Rahmani's work centers around the concept of healing. The "Cities and Oceans of If" is based on Rahmani=s previous project, "Ghost Nets" (1990-2000). "Ghost Nets" required Rahmani to leave New York City and California, where she had spent most of her life, to live full time in a remote fishing village. That work restored a marsh, transforming a former coastal town dumpsite on an island off Maine into productive wetlands. It produced, in the process, a vast number of diverse art objects, including the site itself -- a living sculpture -- in which the formal artistic qualities are space, light, air, time and sound. Working with scientists in the region, Rahmani restored and protected a small piece of property. It linked seventy acres of open land in a part of the country crucial to migratory birds. Subsequent scientific studies of the restored site had stunning consequences for much larger tracts, particularly in the Gulf of Maine. The process of healing the land had begun.

She then applied the concepts she developed in "Ghost Nets" to the town in which the site was located, culminating in a landscape design for the local Ferry terminal to be completed in the spring of 2001. Those ideas were further applied to the nearest large city, Portland, Maine, in an April 2000 residency at the University of Southern Maine. There, narrative panels that tell the story of Rahmani's research and mapping results will be exhibited on the third floor of Bailey Hall, outside the GIS laboratories of the University of Southern Maine, Gorham, Maine January 18 - February 27. That work led her to wonder, "If all the healing circles were re-established around the Atlantic Ocean, could ocean degradation and the loss of clean water be arrested?" She perceived this as a design problem to which she could apply what she understood about large dynamic patterns. The "Cities and Oceans of If" was thus born; the most basic goal of the project being the reconnection of fragmented waterways.

"Ghost Nets" was a story of loss and change. The "Cities and Oceans of If" is a story of choice and hope for redemption. It is a project that ignores political boundaries in favor of larger geographical and biological patterns.

For more information, please contact Chris White, Arts Resources Service, Phone & fax 207-871-7282, e-mail:ars@maine.rr.com.

January 26, 2001


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