{"id":17879,"date":"2019-09-11T02:31:15","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T02:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=17879"},"modified":"2019-09-12T10:46:10","modified_gmt":"2019-09-12T10:46:10","slug":"in-dandelions-and-fireflies-artists-try-to-make-sense-of-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/in-dandelions-and-fireflies-artists-try-to-make-sense-of-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"In dandelions and fireflies, artists try to make sense of climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kate Flint<\/a>, University of Southern California \u2013 Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Climate change is real, it\u2019s accelerating and it\u2019s terrifying. We are adding carbon to the atmosphere at a rate 100 times faster than any previous natural increases<\/a>, such as those that occurred at the end of the last ice age.<\/p>\n

The effects are easily made visible through dramatic images of rapidly shrinking glaciers<\/a> or the Amazon rainforest on fire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But pictures like these can distance us from environmental catastrophe, turning it into something spectacular, arresting \u2013 even paralyzing. They don\u2019t communicate the everyday impact of climate change, which is also taking place in our own backyards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the book I\u2019m currently writing, I\u2019ve made these smaller, less obvious effects my focus. I explore the work of artists and poets who help us understand how the smallest changes to the environment can signal large-scale damage.<\/p>\n

They build on a crucial legacy left by Victorian observers of the natural world who emphasized the need to pay careful attention to the tiny details of our surroundings.<\/p>\n

Observant Victorians<\/h2>\n

No one was more insistent on the importance of looking closely at the ordinary and the everyday than the 19th-century art critic and social thinker John Ruskin.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
John Everett Millais\u2019 1853 portrait of Ruskin.<\/span>
\nAshmolean Museum<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His advice<\/a> to \u201cgo to Nature \u2026 rejecting nothing, selecting nothing and scorning nothing\u201d inspired many artists of the era \u2013 British artists like John Everett Millais<\/a> and John Brett<\/a>, and American painters John Henry Hill<\/a> and William Trost Richards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, books and articles, such as J.G. Wood\u2019s \u201cCommon Objects of the Country<\/a>\u201d and Anne Wright\u2019s \u201cThe Observing Eye<\/a>,\u201d popularized scientific observation<\/a> as a practice available to all, teaching people to find wonder in the world about them \u2013 in \u201cthe sky, the leaves and pebbles<\/a>,\u201d as Ruskin wrote.<\/p>\n

Many contemporary artists have picked up the baton, showing how three very ordinary species from the natural world \u2013 dandelions, fireflies and lichens \u2013 can stimulate our imagination and make us think about climate change in new ways.<\/p>\n

The resilience of dandelions<\/h2>\n

Few plants are more ubiquitous than the dandelion.<\/p>\n

In the 19th century, its yellow flowers and decorative fluffy seed-heads often appeared in sentimental paintings of children gathering dandelions in meadows<\/a> or of young women blowing on gossamer puff-balls<\/a>. They flourished in nursery rhyme illustrations<\/a> and on decorative tiles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Dandelions dotted the landscapes of 19th-century children\u2019s picture books.<\/span>
\nNew York Public Library<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The flower was useful in the kitchen, too: Victorians ate it in salads<\/a> and drank it in teas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But at some point in the 19th century, its status morphed. Dandelions became a weed.<\/p>\n

As all gardeners know, they are persistent. Weedkillers like sodium arsenite were introduced in the late 19th century. After World War II, powerful chemicals were developed for lawn maintenance<\/a>, doing far more damage to people and the environment<\/a> than dandelion roots. Gardening websites are still full of references to \u201cthe war on dandelions<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, British artist Edward Chell<\/a> wants us to think about the damage done to these exiled weeds. He picks dandelions and other wild flowers on Britain\u2019s motorway verges \u2013 micro-habitats choking with pollutants that nonetheless sustain diverse vegetation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Edward Chell\u2019s \u2018Dandelion Taraxacum officinale: Road Dust M4.\u2019<\/span>
\nEdward Chell, 2011. Road dust on 400gsm acid free watercolour\/drawing paper 135 x 105 cm.<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Using a silhouette drawing technique borrowed from the late 18th century, he draws the plant in outline and fills it with a mixture of ink and dust taken from the motorway. His images show the beautiful fragility of roadside weeds. But they\u2019re also records of toxicity, made with the residue of the internal combustion engine: unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter.<\/p>\n

The jagged edges of the dandelion<\/a> have a starring role in his series. But for Chell, the flower no longer symbolizes sentimentality and innocence, as it did in the Victorian era; instead, it\u2019s mutated into a chilling commentary on roadside pollution.<\/p>\n

The magic of fireflies<\/h2>\n

In a threatened world, nature exerts a nostalgic pull. For many Americans, thoughts of fireflies transport them to the long, warm summer evenings of childhood.<\/p>\n

Fireflies enjoy a double life: By day, they are unremarkable, dull-brown insects; by night, they are captivating sparks that dance together.<\/p>\n

Victorian writers and artists saw magic in these floating dots of light, comparing them to fairies and goblins<\/a>. The firefly\u2019s grip on the imagination was so strong that it inspired scientists to search for ways to explain the mysteries of bioluminescence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The magic of fireflies persists. Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama has constructed several firefly installations that were inspired by a Japanese folktale about an old man in a field who was robbed on a pilgrimage<\/a>. In Japanese culture, fireflies stand for the soul: In the tale, thousands of fireflies attack the man\u2019s assailants after his death.<\/p>\n

The Phoenix Art Museum features one of Kusama\u2019s installations<\/a>. Visitors can stand in a pitch-black room of mirror-lined walls, polished black granite floor and a black plexiglass ceiling, from which 250 LED lights hang and flicker like fireflies on a continuous two-and-a-half minute loop.<\/p>\n