Ecosystems
Ecosystems: Watersheds, Oceans and Forest Contiguity
Clean water, whether fresh or salt, watershed or riparian have always been primary concerns in Aviva Rahmani’s work, both as metaphors for what is vulnerable and powerful and as the foci for a wide range of ecological restoration projects. The loss of clean water endangers every aspect of life on Earth. Rahmani understands that the solutions require a broad strategy, from judicial reform and engineering or regulatory constraints to more abstract discussions about values and relationships.
Click the image to explore the virtual gallery showing ecoart images by Aviva Rahmani.
Blue Rocks
Blue Rocks (2002) was an example of what curators Amy Lipton and Sue Spaid termed an ecovention, a place where art intervenes in environmental degradation. Forty large boulders painted blue, drawing attention to an obstructed causeway on Pleasant River, Vinalhaven Island, Maine. The ecovention included the painting of the boulders by the river and a “wash-in,” which came as a response to being subpoenaed from the town to clean the rocks, to educate the local community about estuarine health. The project included GIS mapping. The site choice applied Trigger Point Theory. My task was to investigate how the restoration of this small site could have regional impact. It was at a significant confluence of ecotones (transitions between systems).
In 2002, Blue Rocks was initiated at Pleasant River on Vinalhaven Island, Maine. Aviva Rahmani painted forty large boulders around an obstructed causeway, with a casein slurry of nontoxic ultramarine pigment, buttermilk, and native mosses to encourage the growth of more moss. When the town of Vinalhaven subpoenaed the artist to wash the rocks clean, she announced a “wash-in,” and used the occasion to educate passers-by about estuarine health. The attention to the site contributed momentum to a commitment from the USDA of over $500,000 to restore a total of twenty-six critical wetland acres.
There were two goals:
1. To test her Trigger Point Theory by seeing if the restoration of a small site could have a regional impact. In aerial photography, the two sides of the island look like the chambers of a beating heart. The Army Corps of Engineers had narrowed the causeway, which impeded tidal flow between fresh and saltwater, causing stagnation.
2. To explore how to catalyse a chain reaction of events (by drawing attention to the site with the painted rocks and a subsequent wash-in) that would catalyse a thriving community relationship to a healthy ecosystem.
The site was selected by analysing relevant Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping. That GIS work was completed by Gordon Longsworth of the College of the Atlantic for the Vinalhaven Land Trust. Rahmani’s GIS analysis was based on her work as chair of the Natural Resources Subcommittee for the 2005 Vinalhaven Comprehensive Plan.
Detail of Blue Rocks Date: 2002 Size: Variable Materials: Photographic detail of 40 painted boulders in a causeway Description: Granite boulders painted with a casein slurry of buttermilk and non-toxic ultramarine blue pigment.
Blue Rocks Materials Date: 2002 Size: Variable Materials: Granite boulders painted with a casein slurry of buttermilk and non-toxic ultramarine blue pigment. Description: Materials for painting granite boulders.
GIS for Blue Rocks Date: 2002 Size: 17" x 23" Materials:Photoshop on colored pencil drawing layers, based on GIS mapping Description: Imaging where biogeographic data overlaps for a critical location of the Gulf of Maine.
Blue Rocks Pleasant River August 2012 Date: 2012 Size: Variable Materials: Photograph Description: Pleasant River, site of Blued Rocks project 10 years after restoration work. Photo by Aviva Rahmani.
Provenance:
Stills from Blue Rocks have been shown in the following exhibition: In the Green curated by Audra Bowsky, Woman Made Gallery website, March 20 - April 22, 2013.
Publications:
Rahmani, Aviva. "Why Blue Rocks?" Available online at: http://greenmuseum.org/content/artist_content/ct_id-91__artist_id-23.html, 2002.
Denson, Roger. "Nomads Occupy the Global Village: Left Political Art Timeline, 2001-2012" The Huffington Post. May 1, 2012.
Cities and Oceans of If
Cities and Oceans If (2000-2010) imagines a world of “if,” where natural resources were valued and protected. The public art interventions were studies of ecological acupressure “trigger” points across various sites internationally, reinforcing habitat restoration, biodiversity, and interdependence. Experimenting with the virtual and physical and combining artistic inquiry, data collection, and mapping, the project centrally asks, “Can art be used to identify degraded biodiversity hotspots around the world in landscapes and urban regions, whose restoration could affect large-scale landscape healing?
The “If” refers to the world we might live in if natural resources were valued and protected. Broadly conceiving the definition of a site, this project explored how a site’s location could be reconceived as a trigger point for the interdependence between physical, imaginative, and virtual aspects of environmental restoration.
International proposals for public art interventions included sites in Bergen Belsen, Germany; Geumgang, Korea; New Delhi, India, and Pescia, Italy. The goal of restoring sites, to connect fragmented natural resources, has its greatest implications for water. The health of local native fish stocks is one way to track linkage between water systems and habitats.
Virtual Cities and Oceans of If experimented with using the Internet to perform residencies, without the international travel that spews jet fuel over the earth's waters and into her atmosphere. “The physiological cost of traveling to multiple work sites had become as far beyond my personal resources as the fuel use is that taxes our earth. I recognized an opportunity to discover new solutions to our global warming crisis. …The virtual world can leverage sustainable restoration and remediation of degraded ecologies. Virtuality is brilliantly exploited by terrorists. It can equally dramatically serve a different agenda.” —August 2006 “Virtual Cities & Oceans of If” press release.
Pervious, Porous, Integrated Date: 2006 Size: 15’ x 12' x 8' Materials: Cross-media installation: live plants, watering can, painted wall mural and photography Description: Installation at the Exit Art gallery, for The Drop exhibition (2006), a large, labor intensive wall mural about redesigning Manhattan with endemic plants to prepare for flooding caused by sea level rise and climate change. The relationships between Arctic melting, rising water and built infrastructure due to global warming was painted in a short time to reflect how quickly global warming can undo eons of evolution. In the center, a gold circle proposed a redesign of the Manhattan building that was the site of the exhibition.
Transformation and Degradation Date: 2002 Size: 45' x 20' Materials: Installation including mural, sound, graphics and iron bed with fish nets. Description: For the Ecovention exhibition (2002) at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati (CAC). It culminated 12 years research on fisheries and landscape degradation from the Gulf of Maine to the Mississippi River, as part of the Ghost Nets project 1990-2000 and Cities and Oceans of If. Wall mural map in installation envisioned how fresh waterways and fisheries concerns connect the Midwest to the North Atlantic ocean.
'If' Detail Date: 2002 Size: 120" x 456" Materials: Installation mural with GIS graphics. Description: installation detail at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, Maine, GIS graphics created with Dr. Irwin Novak then mounted onto a box construction. The GIS indicated how open urban space might be connected for ecosystem contiguity in coastal fish habitat.
'Listen' Detail Date: 2002 Size: Variable Materials: Photograph Description: detail image from series of graphic installations (Stay Wait Look Listen) designed for Arts in Transit St. Louis, with a landscape restoration proposed for the USML South Station in St. Louis Missouri.
Provenance:
Stills from Cities & Oceans of If have been shown in the following exhibitions: Ecovention, Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, OH, 2000; Imaging the River, curated by Amy Lipton, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY, 2003-2004; Visions about Nature, curated by Anke Mellin, Korean Nature Artists Association-Yatoo, Chungnam, South Korea, 2005; Called to Action, curated by Lillian Ball, Art Sites, Riverhead, NY; The Drop curated by Jodi Hanel, Exit Art, New York City, NY, April 8 - June 10, 2006 and Groundworks, curated by Grant Kestor, Regina Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, PA, 2005.
Publications:
Spaid, Sue. Ecovention: current art to transform ecologies. Cincinnati, Ohio: Contemporary Art Center, greenmuseum.org and ecoartspace, 2000.
Auses, Jack; Kester, Grant and Strayer, Jenny Eds. Groundworks Pennsylvania: Carnegie Mellon University, 2005.
Mellin, Anke, Visions About Nature. South Korea: The Korean Nature Artists Association-Yatoo, 2005.
Genocchio, Benjamin. “Digging In to Nurture Nature.” New York Times May 20, 2007.
Rahmani, Aviva. “Mapping Trigger Point Theory as Aesthetic Activism.” PJIM, Vol.4, Issue 2, Winter pp.1-9, 2012.
Rahmani, Aviva. “A Community of Resistance: Collaborative Work with Science and Scientists.” WEAD Magazine. Online publication Issue 7, CREATING COMMUNITY, available at: http://weadartists.org/communities-art-science, 2014.
Ghost Nets
Ghost Nets (1990-1991) was a multipart habitat restoration project where Trigger Point Theory was developed. Situated on the former coastal town dump of Vinalhaven island in the Gulf of Maine, the project restored 2.5 acres of habitat through conceptual and practical actions that explored soil, land, animal and water relationships: Trigger Point Garden, KindWind, and Traffic Dance.
Aviva Rahmani purchased the site of a former coastal town dump on a fishing island in the Gulf of Maine for Ghost Nets. There, she developed Trigger Point Theory: the idea that small points of carefully selected intervention might effect large systemic transformations.
Ghost Nets restored 2.5 acres of habitat, in the middle of an Atlantic seabird Class A Fly Zone, to a flourishing wetlands system and personal residence. Rahmani designed a passive solar home on the site with Steve Robinson (AIA) and created a complex uplands riparian zone garden and water buffer zones. The project was divided into three parts: 1) the Trigger Point Garden, 2) KindWind, 3) Traffic Dance. Each part was performative, transformative, and explored another aspect of soil to land and water relationships conceptually and practically.
“Ghost Nets, will continue during the decade of global choice, the time period during which urgent ecological choices must be made, according to many environmental groups...Rahmani gave up her sunny 2,500-square-foot loft in New York to move to a remote island off Maine with her dog and cat, a small wood stove and a party line phone. In Ghost Nets…Rahmani will examine how we abuse our natural environment and in so doing, she will seek alternative solutions...Ghost Nets addresses future survival. Human change and commitment can weave together the fragile and the primitive in nature and mankind to shelter the planet...Rahmani will use the processes of building and collaboration during the next nine years of Ghost Nets. This will be accomplished by forming partnerships in Maine with local fishermen and by performing and documenting housekeeping tasks for her own home as part of a wider global effort.” - December 1990 Ghost Nets press release.
'Ghost Nets' Swamp Quarry 1930 Date: 1930 Size: Variable Materials: Black & White photograph Description: Early photograph of what was to became the Ghost Nets site. Photograph courtesy of the Vinalhaven Historical Society.
'Ghost Nets' Bed of Nets Date: 1992 Size: 4' x 4' x 6'7" Materials: Installation of drift nets on a painted iron bed. Description: This installation of recovered drift nets from the former town dump, was part of my meditative practice during the completion of the Ghost Nets project. The bed represents what we collectively “get in bed with” that has resulted in environmental degradation. Photograph by Aviva Rahmani.
'Ghost Nets' Traffic Dance Date: 2013 Size: Variable Materials: Photograph Description: Aerial detail of bioengineering and excavation for 1/3 wetlands acres portion of Ghost Nets which restored a total of 2.5 acres in a Class A Migratory sea bird intercontinental corridor in the Gulf of Maine site. Photograph by Ben Magro.
'Ghost Nets' Storm Surge Line Date: 1997 Size: Variable Materials: Digital photograph Description: Fresh water meeting saltwater across the storm surge line of the Ghost Nets site for the first time in one hundred years at the Ghost Nets site. Photograph by Aviva Rahmani.
'Ghost Nets' Before and After 1.997 and 2007 Date: 1997 and 2007 Size: Variable Materials: Photomontage Description: Aerial shots of the Ghost Nets site showing changes to the uplands riparian zone and estuary over a 10 year time span. Photographs by Ben Magro.
Provenance:
Stills from Ghost Nets have been shown in the following exhibitions: GROUNDED VISIONS: Artistic Research into Environmental Issues, Zurich, Switzerland, November 27, 2015 - March 23, 2016; Works on Water, Marin Community Foundation, Novato, CA, October 5th - Feb 5th, 2012-2013; Beyond Landscape Marin Community Foundation, Novato, CA, June 15th - Sep. 28th, 2012; New Perspectives on Urban Ecology, curated by Alex Tolman Max-Born-Saa, Berlin, Germany, 2010; First International Art and Ecology, invitational workshop and installation, Society for Ecological Restoration, British Park, Jerusalem, Israel, 2000 and Rock Rescue, The Art Center at Kingdom Falls, Belfast, ME, 2000.
Publications:
Tallmer, Jerry. “Artist’s ‘Ghost’ is a 9-year Haunt.” New York Post December 28, 1990.
Schwendenwein, Jude. “Breaking Ground: Art in the Environment.” Sculpture Magazine, September/October, 1991.
Rahmani, Aviva. “Ghost Nets: The Medicine Wheel Garden.” Leonardo 25:1 p. 96, 1992.
Harris, Craig. Leonardo Almanac Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1993.
Rahmani, Aviva. “A Pilgrim’s Progress Experiences in Wetlands Restoration.” Working Waterfront/Inter-Island News November p. 8, 1995.
Lippard, Lucy. The Lure of the Local. New York: The New Press, 1997.
Rahmani, Aviva. “Restoring a ‘pocket’ saltmarsh.” Working Waterfront/Inter-Island News 11 April p. 16, 1998.
Rahmani, Aviva. “Ghost Nets: art meets ecological restoration.” The National Wetlands Newsletter March-April, pp. 3-4, 2000.
Spaid, Sue. Ecovention: current art to transform ecologies. Cincinnati, Ohio: Contemporary Art Center, greenmuseum.org and ecoartspace, 2000.
Sutherland, Amy. “Art-Eco on Vinalhaven.” Maine Telegram. June 10, 2001.
Orenstein, Gloria “The Greening of Gaia: Ecofeminist Artists Revisit the Garden.” Ethics and the Environment. Vol. 8 no. 1, pp:103-111, Spring 2003.
Strelow, Heike. Aesthetics of Ecology: Art in Environmental Design: Theory and Practice. Basel, Berlin, Boston: Birkhauser Verlag fur Architektur, 2004 .
Auses, Jack, Kester, Grant and Strayer, Jenny Eds. Groundworks. Pennsylvania: Carnegie Mellon University, 2005.
Rahmani, Aviva. “Birthing A Virtual Residency.” Available online: http://greenmuseum.org/generic_content.php?ct_id=268, 2005.
Carruthers, Beth. “Mapping the Terrain of Contemporary EcoART Practice and Collaboration.” online posting available at: http://greenmuseum.org/generic_content.php?ct_id=263, 2006.
Rahmani, Aviva. “The Butterfly Effect,” Soundscapes The Journal of Acoustic Ecology, 2007.
Kagan, Sacha and Steinbrugge, Bettina. Eds. Everything Will Be Fine. Germany: Universitat Lueneberg, 2008.
Rahmani, Aviva. “Collaborating with the Earth. Trigger Point Garden” Public , Vol. 41 pp.158-165, 2010.
Boetzkes, Amanda. At the Limit of Form: The Ethics of Contemporary Earth Art. Published by University of Minnesota Press, 2010.
Kagan, Sacha. Art and Sustainability: Connecting Patterns for a Culture of Complexity. Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript Verlag, 2011.
Ingram, Mrill. "Sculpting Solutions: Art-Science Collaborations in Sustainability." Environment Magazine July/August: 24-34, 2012.
Rahmani, Aviva. “A Community of Resistance: Collaborative Work with Science and Scientists.” WEAD Magazine. Online publication Issue 7, CREATING COMMUNITY, available at: http://weadartists.org/communities-art-science, 2014.
Oil & Water
Oil & Water (2010-2014) is a series of representations that emerged from studying the impact of climate change and economics on America’s Midwestern and Southern landscape.
“I took the original photograph for what became Oil & Water during the 2008 hurricane season. Traveling by train from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico and back, I saw how climate change and economics was changing America’s Midwestern and Southern landscape. It was during a Gulf to Gulf session in 2009, with scientists Dr. Eugene Turner and Dr. James White, that I made “Red Sky.” That was the first image of the Oil & Water series, capturing my sense of future danger to our environment. Subsequent images in the series were inspired by the tragic British Petroleum oil spill.” — Aviva Rahmani
Oil & Water #8 detail of Oil & Water book, page #8 Date: 2011 Size: 11" x 11" Materials: Mixed media on Japanese Digital Niyodo Kozo paper. Description: The Oil & Water series was created for "One of a Kind," an exhibition of unique artist's books at Pierre Menard Gallery, Cambridge MA in 2011, "Unbound - An Exhibition in 3 Chapters" at the Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2012, "One of a Kind III" at the Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, New Brunswick, Canada, in 2013 and in "One of a Kind IV" and at the AC Institute, NYC, NY, also 2013, all curated by Heide Hatry.
Oil & Water #6 detail of Oil & Water book, page #6 Date: 2011 Size: 11" x 11" Materials: Mixed media on Japanese Digital Niyodo Kozo paper. Description: The Oil & Water series was created for "One of a Kind," an exhibition of unique artist's books at Pierre Menard Gallery, Cambridge MA in 2011, "Unbound - An Exhibition in 3 Chapters" at the Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2012, "One of a Kind III" at the Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, New Brunswick, Canada, in 2013 and in "One of a Kind IV" and at the AC Institute, NYC, NY, also 2013, all curated by Heide Hatry.
Oil & Water #11 detail of Oil & Water book, page #11 Date: 2011 Size: 11” x 11” Materials: Mixed media on Japanese Digital Niyodo Kozo paper. Description: The Oil & Water series was created for "One of a Kind," an exhibition of unique artist's books at Pierre Menard Gallery, Cambridge MA in 2011, "Unbound - An Exhibition in 3 Chapters" at the Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2012, "One of a Kind III" at the Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, New Brunswick, Canada, in 2013 and in "One of a Kind IV" and at the AC Institute, NYC, NY, also 2013, all curated by Heide Hatry.
Options Data Choice Date: 2009 Size: 11” x 11” Materials: Mixed media on Japanese Digital Niyodo Kozo paper. Description: The Oil & Water series was created for "One of a Kind," an exhibition of unique artist's books at Pierre Menard Gallery, Cambridge MA in 2011, "Unbound - An Exhibition in 3 Chapters" at the Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2012, "One of a Kind III" at the Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, New Brunswick, Canada, in 2013 and in "One of a Kind IV" and at the AC Institute, NYC, NY, also 2013, all curated by Heide Hatry.
Provenance:
Oil & Water was first shown as a series of 15 images in an artist book for One of A Kind, an exhibition of unique artist's books, at Pierre Menard Gallery, Cambridge MA in 2011 then, Unbound – An Exhibition in 3 Chapters at Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2012, One of a Kind III at Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, New Brunswick, Canada in 2013 and also in 2013 at One of a Kind IV at AC Institute, New York, NY, all curated by Heide Hatry.”
Individual images from the Oil & Water series have also been shown in the following: SHFT, at 133 Greene Street, New York, NY in 2010 curated by Edie Kahula Pereira, in 2011 at Oil Spill: Information Gulf, at the Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, NM, curated by Katie Avery, Beyond the Horizon, at Deutsche Bank, New York, NY curated by Amy Lipton, Horizon Lines at ecoartspace New York, NY also curated by Amy Lipton and in 2013 for It's the End of the World as We Know it (and I Feel Fine), Ramapo College Art Galleries, Mahwah, NJ curated by Amy Lipton.
Publications:
Ernest, Dagney. “Rahmani opens, premiers in New York” The Herald Gazette. October 23, 2010.
Billard, Mary. “Saving the World. Smelling Good Too.” The New York Times. October 21 2010: E6. 2010.
Keim, Brandon. "Disturbing or Beautiful? Artists Evaluate Man's Impact on Nature" Weird Science August 10. Available online: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/beyond-the horizon/2011
Heartney, Eleanor. “The horsemen of eco-Armageddon” Art & Australia, Vol 49, No 2. pp: 308-313, Summer 2011.
Lippard, Lucy. Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics, and Art in the Changing West. New York: New Press, 2014.
Cembalest, Robin. "101 Women Artists Who Got Wikipedia Pages This Week" ArtNews Online posting: http://www.artnews.com/2014/02/06/art-and-feminism-wikipedia-editathon-creates-pages-for-women-artists 2014.