Can the Substrate Speak? (Dear Climate)

2024

Broadsheet posters, dimensions variable

Dear Climate (Una Chaudhuri and Marina Zurkow)

Art Souterrain Festival, Montreal. Heather Davis, Curator. Spring 2024

https://festival2024.artsouterrain.com/en/environment-do-you-hear/
This work is part of the project:

Can the Substrate Speak?, a piece created for Art Souterrain, expands a key question in postcolonial studies (“Can the SubalternsSpeak?” Gayatri Spivak), to planetary environmental politics.

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Dear Climate

2014 – ongoing

posters, sound, installations

Core Collaborators: Una Chaudhuri, Fritz Ertl, Oliver Kellhammer, Marina Zurkow
Web Development: Pat Shiu
Sound Design: Pejk Malinovski
Typography: Nancy Nowacek
Voice Overs: Eliza Foss, Seth Kanor, Jane Cramer

Supported by NYU Visual Arts Initiative Awards

http://www.dearclimate.net
This work is part of the project:

Dear Climate is exploring new modes of address through the creation of a collection of ”inner climate” tools. These tools—posters, audio meditations and letters—are designed to nudge participants toward new relations with the greater-than-human world. The free, downloadable posters use the language of agitprop and a “fast read” to create a jolt of relational suggestion. Alternately,…

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Whale Fall Feast (Dear Climate)

2021

Marine debris, plastic bags, metal signs, CNC cut wood, mini-golf turf

In collaboration with Blake Goble, B-Space
Documentation: Jakob Dahlin

Commissioned by Putting Green, NY

https://dearclimate.net/installations/whale-fall-feast
This work is part of the project:

When a whale dies and sinks, its carcass creates an entire ecosystem on the ocean floor, nourishing thousands of organisms. Ocean pollution affects this process and disrupts the food chain, impacting species from krill to whales. Whales are some of the longest living mammals on the planet, with lifespans from 10 to 200 years. When…

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Climate Jeopardy

2022

Cardboard, paint

In collaboration with Abigail Simon

Presented at the Woodstock Farm Festival, New York

A fun, non-didactic participatory engagement “where nobody wins.”

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Hudson Follies

2022

Custom software, color, silent
8K screen and computer
Dimensions approximately 40′ x 10′

In collaboration with Jim Schmitz
Animation assistance: Ewan Creed

Hudson River consultants: Hudson River Park’s River Project: Hudson River consultants: Carrie Roble, Tina Walsh, Siddhartha Hayes, Toland Kister

Worldbuilding consultants:Una Chaudhuri, Lafayette Cruise, Carolyn Hall, Clarinda Mac Low, Tony Patrick

Commissioned by Google for Pier 57

The animated software-driven work Hudson Follies is a site-specific commission by Google for the lobby of their event space occupying Pier 57 along the Hudson River in Chelsea, Manhattan. It explores an alternate, present-day Hudson River estuary in which happy social and biological ecosystems live in harmony, where humans can interact with the water in…

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150 Media Stream

150 Media Stream

2021

3 minute video loop, sound

Sound by Scott Reitherman.
Animation assistance: Ewan Creed.

Commissioned by 150 Media Stream, Chicago IL.

https://150mediastream.com/archive/
This work is part of the project:

On view Oct 2021 – Jan 2022, OOzy #2: like oil and water was conformed for a 16K screen in the lobby of 150 Riverside, Chicago. OOzy #2: like oil and water brings into view a sensual—but harsh—mix of kelp, marine organisms, human aquanauts, mermaids, plastics, and oil, who cycle and snake through the 150…

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Oceans Like Us (5 Manhattan West)

2021

Custom software animation, screens, custom poplar wood pallets

Sound Design: Scott Reitherman. Software: Sam Brenner. Animation: Marina Zurkow and Ewan Creed. Technology: James Schmitz. Documentation: Jakob Dahlin
Curated by Kendal Henry

Commissioned by @artsbrookfield

This work is part of the project:

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What is Happening

2020

Site-specific video installation (52 screens) at the Fulton Transit Center, New York

Created in collaboration with Sarah Rothberg

Commissioned by MTA Arts & Design.

Sarah Rothberg and Marina Zurkow’s video project “WHAT IS HAPPENING” at Fulton Center combines site-specific drawings of the transit hub’s architectural elements with text and animated collage. Philosophical queries like “WHAT IS POSSIBLE” or “WHAT IS MOVING” prompt the minds of viewers passing through. These provocations are met with clever visual juxtapositions, such as a doughnut rising…

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Rising Seas Jellyfish Snack Shack (LAX)

2019

Cannonball jellyfish, ice plant, kombu seaweed, condiments, laser-cut lettering, signage, tarp, stencil, plants

In collaboration with chef duo Hank and Bean

Commissioned by LENS (Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategy), IOES (Institute of Environment and Sustainability), UCLA

This work is part of the project:

A one-day pop up jellyfish jerky snack shack on the campus of UCLA. Serving Cannonball jellyfish jerky served with a choice of seasoning condiments reflective of 5 diverse regions susceptible to sea level rise: Haiti, the US Gulf coast, Sri Lanka/ S. India, Philippines, and the Netherlands. In addition, the snack shack served “invasive” ice…

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Signs, Wonders, Blunders (Dear Climate)

2019

Locust and red oak wood, vinyl plaques, lettering

Dear Climate Collective, in collaboration with Jennie Carlisle, Curator and Director of the Smith Gallery, Appalachian State
Fabrication: Roger Atkins of Cove Creek Woodworks
Fresh cut locust and red oak wood donated by Ian Snider of Mountain Works Sustainable Development
Documentation: Cheryl Zibisky

Commissioned by Climate Stories Collaborative at Appalachian State

This work is part of the project:

“What do I need to know for the planet to thrive?” This question animates “Signs, Wonders, Blunders,” an installation of 13 signposts, each with three multi-directional signs, located at interesting and suggestive locations on campus. The signposts use book titles and common phrases to create a set of playful proposals for new ways of understanding…

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General Assembly (Dear Climate)

2018

Flags, cedar posts

Core Collaborators: Una Chaudhuri, Fritz Ertl, Oliver Kellhammer, Marina Zurkow
Curated by Nora Lawrence
Documentation: Jerry L. Thompson

Commissioned by Storm King Arts Center, New Windsor, New York
For the “Indicators: Artists on Climate Change” exhibition at Storm King

https://dearclimate.net/installations/general-assembly
This work is part of the project:

We want to create a public space that signals—and celebrates—a future world of multi-species collaboration. At the UN General Assembly, there’s a seat for every nation. In our General Assembly of the future, there’ll be a seat at the table for all species and all things.

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Making the Best of It: Dandelion (Eulogies for the Human Species)

2017

Dandelions, beets, custom structure, sod, music, paper, costumes, banners

In collaboration with Valentine Cadieux, Sarah Libertus, Aaron Marx
Dandelion kvaas by Jim Bovino
Dandelions and more from Courtney Tchida
All images courtesy Dan Marshall

Commissioned by Northern Lights.mn and presented as part of Northern Spark, Climate Chaos | Climate Rising, 2016-2017, with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Knight Foundation

This work is part of the project:

“Join us in a ritual festivity that invites you to become more dandelion. From trans-species oration to cow eulogies to intimate ocean tributes, this is the party of Making the Best of It, a communal service compressed into the space of a toast—to how all of us are making the best of it, now and…

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Making the Best of It: Dandelion

2016

Dandelion leaves, flowers, tincture, custom structures, costumes, tour guides, umbrellas, meadow

In collaboration with Valentine Cadieux, Sarah Petersen, Aaron Marx
All images courtesy Dan Marshall

Commissioned by Northern Lights.mn and presented as part of Northern Spark, Climate Chaos | Climate Rising, 2016-2017, with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Knight Foundation

http://makingthebestofit.today/
This work is part of the project:

Over the course of 16 months in Minneapolis, geographer and social practice artist Valentine Cadieux and Marina Zurkow, with a group of collaborators and participants, explored what it might mean to “make the best of it” (“it” being climate change), using dandelions to think through eating differently, nimbly, with sadness, resilience and even joy.

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Karaoke Ice

2006

Performance, software, truck, icies, squirrel emcee, lights, web site

In collaboration with Katie Salen and Nancy Nowacek
Tinklepop Music: Lem Jay Ignacio
Designed and produced in collaboration with students and graduates of the San Jose State Cadre Laboratory for New Media

Commissioned for ZeroOne San Jose: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge,CADRE / SJSU, and the Montalvo Arts Center Sally and Don Lucas Artists Programs.

Proper Pop Protocol:10 Steps to Achieve Karaoke Wonder 1. Resist the urge to stare at your feet. You’ll miss the cue from the squirrel.2. When attempting to sing Hey Ya by Outkast, remember that vowels too can be words.3. Avoid gazing directly into the mirror ball.4. If you lose your place, make it up.5. Try…

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PDPal

2002-2004

Mobile missions for web, pda & cell phone

In collaboration with Julian Bleecker, Scott Paterson, and Adam Chapman

Eyebeam Atelier, Walker Art Center, Banff Center for the Arts

To cover the world, to cross it in every direction, will only ever be to know a few square meters of it… tiny incursions into disembodied vestiges, small incidental excitements, improbable quests congealed in a mawkish haze a few details of which will remain in our memory. And with these, the sense of the world…

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Power at Play

2002

Printed Cards

BLUR is a biannual seminar exploring new creative practices that embrace the pleasure, seduction, and energy of new technologies while calling for deeper reflection and critical awareness of our actions in digital art and culture. BLUR is organized by Creative Time. The New School, and Parsons School of Design. BLUR 02, Power at Play in…

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