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Climate Change Couture on E-Squared Magazine

January 18, 2021
Publications

(US)—I’m stoked to be on E-Squared Magazine, featuring work from the Climate Change Couture series.

E-Squared is an international print publication that draws from both art + science and is the embodiment of this synergy. Issue No. 5 is about the Water Cycle and includes work from artists around the world in 170 pages.

Founded & directed by Emily A. Dustman and archived in Stanford Libraries, E-Squared sets out to present new and groundbreaking ideas developed by artists, scientists, engineers, and all thinkers alike. By blending art and science, E-Squared seeks to generate questions, creative thought, experimentation, collaboration, and innovation with the hope of sparking real social and cultural change.

The works above come from various exhibitions, including The Apocalypse Project: House of Futures (2015) and my residency in Medellin, Colombia (2016).

Buy your copy here.

“Subversive Art: Communicating the Climate Crisis on a Planetary Scale” book chapter in Communicating in the Anthropocene: Intimate Relations (Lexington Books, 2021)

January 12, 2021
Publications

I’m stoked to contribute my first academic book chapter in Communicating in the Anthropocene: Intimate Relations” edited by Vail Fletcher and Alexa Dare. I’ve given the final chapter: Subversive Art: Communicating the Climate Crisis on a Planetary Scale, which details my art practice, specifically The Apocalypse Project body of work.

cover art by Nina and Sonya Montenegro from The Far Woods art house

The purpose of Communicating in the Anthropocene: Intimate Relations is to tell a different story about the world. Humans, especially those raised in Western traditions, have long told stories about themselves as individual protagonists who act with varying degrees of free will against a background of mute supporting characters and inert landscapes. Humans can be either saviors or destroyers, but our actions are explained and judged again and again as emanating from the individual. And yet, as the coronavirus pandemic has made clear, humans are unavoidably interconnected not only with other humans, but with nonhuman and more-than-human others with whom we share space and time. Why do so many of us humans avoid, deny, or resist a view of the world where our lives are made possible, maybe even made richer, through connection? In this volume, we suggest a view of communication as intimacy. We use this concept as a provocation for thinking about how we humans are in an always-already state of being-in-relation with other humans, nonhumans, and the land.

The book is edited by C. Vail Fletcher And Alexa M. Dare with contributions from Carol Adams; Paul Alberts; Katharina Alsen; Anne Armstrong; Joshua Trey Barnett; Christianna Bennett; Peggy Bowers; Suzanne Brant; Chelsea Call; Laura C Carlson; Patricia Castello Branco; Amal Dissanayaka; Marybeth Holleman; Jessica Holmes; Kathy Isaacson; Deepani Jayantha; Michaela Keeble; Marianne Krasny; Libby Lester; Todd Levasseur; Lyn Mcgaurr; S. Marek Muller; Anna Oehlkers; Peter Oehlkers; Elizabeth Oriel; Emily Plec; Joshua Potter; Paul Pulé; Jenny Rock; Madrone Kalil Schutten; Ellen Sima; Richard Stedman; Carie Steele; Mark Terry; Mariko Oyama Thomas; Keith Williams; Çağri Yilmaz and Catherine Sarah Young.

Order the book here.

“Global Warming” in the Visual Arts Journal of the School of Visual Arts

October 26, 2018
Publications

“The best thing about being an artist is being able to mingle with all kinds of people.” I’m stoked to be in the Fall 2018 issue of the magazine of my beloved grad school alma mater, the Visual Arts Journal of the School of Visual Arts NYC about my art residencies and speaking engagements around the world. A sure sign of old age.

Together with other international students and scholars from The Fulbright Program, the article, “Global Warming”, is written by Alexander Gelfand (pp 20-23) and I talk mostly about how I’ve adapted to many places around the world (TLDR: take care of your mental health, have a healthy diet, exercise, and make friends 😉).

This interview happened during a late night in my residency in Vienna with KulturKontakt Austria and the Austrian Federal Chancellery; residencies are always great time to reflect on past work to see where we want to go next. Images courtesy of USAID Asia, Rache Go, Plan International Asia, Gui Gomes, LABVERDE, Joni Ong, & Centre for Sustainability PH. Always wonderful to remember all the places art has taken us!

Check out the issue here for more articles: http://www.sva.edu/about/visual-arts-journal

Article on Springerin on Contemporary Art and Social Inclusion

October 25, 2018
Publications

I’m honored to contribute an article to the October issue of Vienna-based springerin – Hefte für Gegenwartskunst, a quarterly magazine dedicated to the theory and critique of contemporary art and culture. Entitled “A Different Shape of Progress” (Fortschritt in anderer Form), I write about contemporary art and social inclusion through the context of my interdisciplinary art practice.

Order the issue here: http://www.springerin.at/en/2018/4/

The article is in German but send me a message if you want the original English article.

From the editor:

Issue 4/2018

#Progress

Is our society developing further? “Further” in the sense that efforts are made, in real practical terms, to remediate circumstances recognised as unjust and to actively set in motion processes that aim to promote balanced modes of living together? Is progress, which has so long determined the narrative of modernisation and social redistribution, still a significant category today? Are aspects of progress or more viable approaches to overcoming unjust, non-egalitarian relations perhaps to be found in the cultural realm rather than elsewhere? And should we give credence to ideologies of progress that locate such progress above all in the technological realm, possibly harbouring as a hidden agenda a conviction that societal mechanisms will somehow or other come into play in the wake of developments on the technological front? Contemporary art may perhaps always be one step ahead of all this, in that it seeks to impact on an irksome Here and Now from the perspective of the future, of a vision drawn with idealised or utopian brushstrokes. The fall issue unfurls scenarios that engage with this impact, asking to what extent it offers a viable means of working toward (also social) progress that genuinely merits this designation.

Future Greats on ArtReview Asia’s Summer 2018 issue

August 25, 2018
Art, Publications

I’m honored to be listed as one of the ten Future Greats by ArtReview Asia with me selected by Poklong Anading, one of the region’s top artists, for their Summer 2018 issue. This is truly the kindest thing anyone has ever said about me that’s Google-able, and it’s more than I deserve. Thank you very much!

“I was invited to be on a jury for a residency in France, she applied and that’s where I first came across her name. She’s not so active in the local scene in Manila and more into producing works through residencies outside the Philippines. Nevertheless, it was a real surprise that no one in the local scene knew her. I find her work very interesting because there is a scientific base to it (she has collaborated with scientists, local communities, corporate entities and chefs), and it’s rare to see this. You have to study her work to really feel it, because it has a delicate nature. She’s concerned with the environment in a way that’s not so close to my own concerns (even though I’m doing some research on sewage systems in various countries): she has a way of working that’s more accurate, more responsible.

Sometimes I think I shouldn’t be part of the art scene: why are we making art rather than fixing society? The more art that is made, the more it spreads and the more problematic it becomes: we talk about a problem rather than addressing it. But Catherine uses art to bring extra perspectives to bear on environmental and social issues, which leads to a better understanding of the problems, and that’s what impresses me. Works from her Climate Change Couture (2013) series, part of The Apocalypse Project (2013–; an interdisciplinary platform that seeks to reveal the humane face of climate change), for example, draw on the disciplines of design and fashion to produce artworks in the form of wearable costumes that speak about what humans might have to do to adapt to climate change. I trust her knowledge. For me artmaking is more poetic, but I see the weight of knowledge behind her work as giving it importance. More than that, she plays with things and mixes things up. Her Sewer Soaperie series (2016) uses research into so-called fatbergs, conducted in Manila and Medellín, to trace the journeys of various cooking oils, ending up in the saponification of various used cooking oils and greases collected from sewers and open pipes in Manila (interestingly the saponification of used palm oil raised questions about how pure it was in the first place). She has a sharp mind and is very serious about what she does.”
—Poklong Anading

Works featured here are from The Apocalypse Project, a body of work that explores climate change and our environmental futures, specifically Climate Change Couture (2013) done during a residency at the Singapore-ETH Future Cities Laboratory, and the Sewer Soaperie (2016) created during a residency at Casa Tres Patios and Platohedro.

I’m very cognizant of how I’m able to do my work thanks to residencies and fellowships, as well as the generosity of time and resources of a lot of people. I’m going to work really hard for this to come true. Many thanks to all my previous and current collaborators!

View the article here.

The Apocalypse Project’s The Ephemeral Marvels Perfume Store on “The Art of Systems Analysis” by IIASA

September 8, 2017
Publications

“The Art of Systems Analysis”, IIASA, 2017

 

[Laxenburg, Austria] The Ephemeral Marvels Perfume Store, a perfume project about the things we could lose because of climate change, is featured on “The Art of Systems Analysis,” by the International Institute of Systems Analysis (IIASA). The document features projects from international artists and asks the question, “How can artists support transformations to sustainability?” Featured as well is a quote by one of my longtime scientist collaborators and The Apocalypse Project’s sustainability advisor, Dr. Matthias Berger.

 

from “The Art of Systems Analysis,” IIASA, 2017, pages 18-19

from “The Art of Systems Analysis,” IIASA, 2017

Mentioned in the article are some of the slew of residencies, workshops, talks, and exhibitions for which this particularly project has received support through the years: Singapore-ETH Future Cities Laboratory, USAID Asia, Bio-Art Seoul, Plan International (with support from BMUB Germany, International Climate Initiative, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), CCCB Lab Barcelona, 1335Mabini Manila, and my recent residency in the Amazon Rainforest with LABVERDE. Thank you for being part of the process!

I love moments like these when I can look back and thank some of the scientists who have collaborated with me. Thank you for the time and hard crits! Hope to meet you all in person one day!

Check it out here (the spread is on pages 18-19, but I encourage you to read the whole thing).