The students in "Anthropocene Humanities" went to see Maya Lin's "Ghost Forest" installation at Madison Square Park today.
One theme for the day was public art and the conversations and communities it sparks, and we'd read articles by Emily Raboteau and Mik Awake, two writers who became friends over another work of public art, Justin Guariglia's Climate Museum-sponsored work "Climate Signals." Raboteau is a subtle multi-media artist, weaving together text and photographic images, and under her tutelage Awake becomes one too. In their articles they include thoughtfully, even artfully constructed photographs of the public art pieces with their fellow traveler - and reflect on what the images say, what's intentionally and accidentally shown in them, etc. Raboteau writes that a picture she took of Awake at Rockaway Beach:
looks uncannily like the Andrew Wyeth painting, Christina’s World. The resemblance lies in the nuance of shadows and light, the waving grass, my subject’s backward-facing posture, and the property on the horizon line (in this case, a Mitchell Lama housing complex rather than a farmhouse) that appears imperiled by a looming, unseen force.
Inspired, Awake rhapsodizes about a picture taken in the Bronx:
The light in this photo is a chiaroscuro broken apart by the branches of the giant tree to your left. That’s one of the things I do now, as a result of the time I’ve spent with you: pay attention to the light in my photos. A streak of shadow on the hill behind you merges with your hair, creating the illusion of motion or a trail of smoke wafting towards the sign’s message (INEQUIDAD DE ENERGIA FOSIL), held in tension with your glance, lit with interest at two passersby, strangers to us, as we once were to each other.
Awake and Raboteau are gifted writers, and got to know each other over many weeks, but I thought we could try a mini version of their process. I asked the students to walk in pairs to the park to experience Lin's "Ghost Forest," and, like the two writers, to take thoughtfully composed pictures of each other. It was a bit much to ask of students not a month into college, but worth a try. They had a ball, even though access to Lin's copse was closed to allow the lawn to rest, and some of the photos were lovely. A student explains the one above:
I edited the picture to make [name] and I look ghostly, like we are fading away. Like much climate art that reminds us of what will not be in the future, the anthropocene reminds us we might not be.