By John Sabraw, Brooke Ripley, Erin Dellasega
Preface
Creativity is an essential trait of human beings. It is our creativity that led us to adapt iron oxide as sunscreen allowing for migration, and further process it into pigments so that we could visually communicate abstract ideas. Even now it is this innate, creative gift that may be the key to unlocking solutions to climate collapse.
Creativity: Our Evolutionary Edge
Human migratory patterns can be attributed to depletion of food sources and fluctuations in climatic conditions. To survive these migrations, our ancient ancestors creatively adapted naturally occurring iron oxides to shield themselves from the sun's rays and to preserve their food. Creativity was as an evolutionary edge for migratory survival, but also for communication, as early humans used these same iron oxides to illustrate visual narratives of our species and the experiences they had along the way.The migration of Homo sapiens from Africa to other regions took place over thousands of years. It was driven by a combination of factors, including environmental changes, population growth, and cultural advancements. Often, we would deplete food sources and be forced to move on to find new resources.
Iron oxide pigments, particularly red ochre, played a crucial role in facilitating human migration out of Africa. Red ochre, composed of iron oxide minerals like hematite and goethite, is a natural pigment that early humans used for its versatile practical and symbolic applications. This discovery was a significant turning point that allowed our ancestors to successfully traverse and settle in different parts of the world.
The Evolution of Extraction
The Enlightenment era brought forth social progress and democratic ideals, which was often portrayed in artworks using iron oxide pigments. To fuel the rapid industrial and technological advancements of this age to the Modern era, we extracted carbon-based energy sources like coal and oil at unsustainable rates. This led to widespread habitat destruction, extinction, and pollution on a global scale.
The era of enlightenment and progress into the Modern age saw the rapid growth of industrialization and technological advancements, fueled by a demand for energy sources. Carbon-based fuels such as coal and oil were the lifeblood of the industrial revolution, driving unprecedented economic growth and societal transformation. However, the unsustainable extraction of these energy sources occurred at alarming rates, with little regard for the long-term consequences.
In this context, the artworks of the time, with their iron oxide pigments and their embodiment of Enlightenment ideals, began to take on a poignant irony. They served as reminders of the paradoxical nature of progress, reflecting both the transformative power of human intellect, and the destructive consequences of our unbridled pursuit of growth.
The juxtaposition of the Enlightenment ideals embodied in artworks and the rampant extraction of carbon-based energy sources encapsulated the complex and contradictory nature of that era. It serves as a reminder that progress must be pursued in harmony with the natural world, recognizing our responsibility to protect and preserve the environments upon which our very existence depends.
Unearthing Awareness
By the 1970s, the environmental consequences of our extractive practices encompassing pollution, habitat loss, and health concerns, became readily apparent. Simultaneously, the first comprehensive studies defining the emergence of Global Warming and Climate Change came to light. In response to these issues, artists began the Land and Earth Art movements and employed their creative skills to raise consciousness regarding the profound impacts we are imposing upon the natural world.
During the 1970s, a critical juncture emerged as the environmental consequences of our extractive practices were becoming more recognizable. Pollution, habitat loss, and health concerns became impossible to ignore, which cast an alarming light on our relationship with the Earth: our only habitat. Coinciding with this development, the first comprehensive studies warning us of the threats of global warming and climate change surfaced, underscoring the urgent need for action. In response to these pressing issues, visionary artists embarked on the Land and Earth Art movement. Through their boundless creativity and artistic prowess, they sought to awaken consciousness and provoke introspection regarding the impacts we have imposed upon the natural world. Their works stood as powerful testaments to the interconnectedness of humanity and the environment and invite viewers to contemplate our responsibilities as stewards of the Earth.
Art Takes Action
Inspired by Land and Earth Art movements, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, a new form of artistic expression emerged: Eco-Art. This new movement went beyond creating contemplative pieces or raising awareness; it involved direct collaboration with scientists, researchers, and activists to find solutions. [keep this here or no?] Artist John Sabraw collaborates with Engineer Guy Riefler, and Watershed Coordinator Michelle Shively-MacIver to implement a new process of remediation by intercepting acid mine pollution, a consequence of extractive coal mining, before it gets to the streams. This remediation is unique in that the waste product, iron oxide, becomes a marketable pigment, the sales of which offset operational costs and generate a small profit, which can go to the cleanup of other sites.
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, we witnessed the undeniable impact of human activities on the environment—polluted waters, climate change, mass extinctions, and deteriorating ecosystems. Inspired by Land and Earth Art movements, a new form of artistic expression emerged: Eco-Art. This new movement went beyond creating contemplative pieces or raising awareness; it involved direct collaboration with scientists, researchers, and activists to actively find solutions. The following examples provide a glimpse into the Eco-Art movement.
Mel Chin:
The impact of the human species is apparent even in the soil we walk on. Contaminated waste sites dictate the plants that can and can’t grow in a region for decades or longer. In “Revival Field” Mel Chin investigated the strategic implementation of plants that could uptake heavy-metals, and how this may remediate the soils of a toxified land. While we often see evidence of our harm on this world, Revival Field shows us that we can facilitate, through the collaboration of art and science, the healing of the very land we have destroyed. (1)Alan Sonfist:
To remediate the climate crisis, we must also see the environment as a collaborator. In Pool of Virgin Earth, Alan Sonfist installed virgin soil on top of toxified soil so that seeds blown in from the surrounding barren landscape would populate it. (2)
Jean Shin:
The Delaware River is a host to many, from microscopic organisms to native mussels and even pollution from Philadelphia’s Cherry Street Pier. Installed in honor of the Delaware River, a public fountain by artist Jean Shin juxtaposes vintage pearl buttons, created from mussels, with live mussels that demonstrate their filtering power. This exposes our overconsumption and the fragility of a local ecosystem. (3)
Kim Abeles:
Kim Abeles collaborates with the very air she breathes to create her Smog Collectors series, by allowing stencils to define where the particulates of the air can attach. Over a period of days to months, the particulates will build to create an image. In Sixty Blocks Square of Los Angeles Horizon (Seven Days of Smog) we see two iterations of a landscape. One being its form, as the stencil has defined, and the other being the very particles that cling to the paper. These particles are an index of the landscape, of the air, of this horizon. In a moment, we may not always see this smog, but Kim Abeles’ work shows us that it is always there. (4)Agnes Denes:
A Forest for New York challenges the misconceptions of “development”. A plot of land in New York City is ripe for urban development, for condo and office buildings. Yet, Agnes Denes advocates for, and is in the process of, biological diversification in such an area. A forest, planted with the local ecology in mind, and the aesthetics of an artist behind it, creates a sanctuary for humans and nonhumans alike.
Sanctuaries such as this live alongside us. In Denes’ piece “Tree Mountain – A Living Time Capsule – 11,000 Trees, 11,000 People, 400 Years”, she created an opportunity for multigenerational stewardship. Each tree was planted by a different person, who takes on responsibility for their tree, certified with an inheritable document that is to be passed down from generation to generation. This work is monumental in both scale and duration; it requires a commitment beyond ourselves. (5)
Mary Mattingly:
Community-based action is a hallmark of the Eco-Art movement. To circumvent New York’s zoning laws against growing and foraging food on public land, artist and activist Mary Mattingly created Swale, a barge that hosts an edible landscape. Since its launch in 2016, Swale has hosted over 800 guided tours and 205,000 visitors. Through this work, Mattingly investigates our relationship with land and one another, and how zoning laws can influence this relationship: “In 2017, due to a confluence of Swale, a NYC Parks commissioner supportive of edible landscapes, and the strength and support of many community groups and stewards, NYC opened its first "foodway" in Concrete Plant Park in the Bronx. If there continues to be stewardship interest, they may build more.” (6)
Angelo Vermeulen:
To many, environment and technology are diametrically opposing ideas. For a plant to grow, it needs an organic environment, while technology often needs an arid, artificial environment. However, in Biomodd, Angelo Vermeulen demonstrates a coexistence, even a symbiosis between environment and technology. Algae provides cooling for computer processors, while the heat from participants playing video games with this system provides the ideal climate for plants. Thus, they emulate nature’s symbiosis, despite one part being manufactured. (7)
John Sabraw:
To live in symbiosis with the earth, we must first address the harm we have caused. In one example of Eco-Art, Acid Mine Drainage pollution, a consequence of the coal-mining industry, negatively impacts and often kills aquatic life in more than 1,300 miles of streams in Ohio alone. Despite these mines being long abandoned, this legacy of pollution is expected to continue for hundreds of years. An economical and perpetual solution is needed. In Southeastern Ohio many of the streams run orange. Throughout the first half of the 20th century strip mining and room-and-pillar mining were common throughout this region. Forests were clear cut, soils scraped away, and tunnels dug to remove the coal. A few active coal mines continue in the region, but by the 1970s most of the mining companies had moved on leaving behind open mines and disturbed land, with inadequate restoration.
Much of the forest has now regrown, although it is young, but the underground mines continue to release toxic water to streams. When abandoned, many of the mines fill with water, and the oxygen and water react with mineral surfaces that had been buried for 300 million years. When sulfides are present, these are common in Appalachian coal deposits, very high concentrations of sulfuric acid and iron are produced. In one local seep, over one million gallons per day of polluted water enters Sunday Creek. This water has a final pH below 2 and over 2000 lb of iron per day. It is like junking a car in the stream every day. However, Engineer Professor Guy Reifler started asking what if the iron sludge could be sold as a valuable resource rather than disposed of as a waste product? What if treating pollution could be an entrepreneurial endeavor rather than a societal cost?
Artist and Professor John Sabraw was able to the turn these powdered iron minerals into a working paint for the first time. Sabraw has developed a relationship with Gamblin Artists Colors who produced 37ml tubes of oil paint using three different pigment colors from out project. These “Reclaimed” paints have been distributed to artists around the world and the resulting artworks curated into an online exhibition highlighting our efforts and generating broader discourse on developing more sustainable art practices. #reclaimedcolor
With little funding and lots of skeptics, we are now refining a process that can continuously treat AMD, restore a stream for aquatic life, and collect iron pigment that can be sold offsetting operational costs. Based on our best estimates, we should be able to create a few jobs and produce a small profit, while eliminating a perpetual pollution source. We are currently securing funding for a large facility to implement our process at the worst AMD pollution site in Ohio and in a few years begin producing large quantities of pigment. Hopefully, in another 10 years we will have started a new industry in Southeast Ohio that turns pollution into paint while restoring our watersheds.
Intimacy with the Anthropocene
The Anthropocene is an epoch of scale- humanity’s impact is global. To understand our impact, we look to collective data, such as the rate of deforestation, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, and the global loss of biodiversity. While useful, this evidentiary data is inherently impersonal. Artists are working to make the Anthropocene personal with the goal of collective action.
The segregation of arts and sciences in our culture and education reinforces the disengagement of the personal. Eco-Artists seek to reactivate the personal by creating social and habitat intersections that reinforce the value of an individual’s creativity while they gain experiential understanding of their local habitats. Through this, we can empower individuals to re-engage with issues of climate justice.
Example project: InHabitat
In the Acid Mine Drainage remediation process, we work with this polluted river and we look at overarching data to understand it, but this data is not the physical ecosystem of the seep. To gain a personal relationship with this local habitat, InHabitants sculpted by individual participants are placed into the stream affected by the acid mine seep where they can collect the iron oxide and bear the weight of this pollution. The contaminated water runs past and around them, while sensors attached to them catalog these patterns as data.
In using sensors to catalog the intricate workings of the river, and later using AI to interpret this data, we assert the value of the personal. In doing so, we intersect traditional and digital art-making practices with social practice. We offer an intimacy to the Anthropocene.
This project is rooted in the ancient practices of the processing and treatment of iron oxide, a practice that was once a way to connect with nature. Accessing this history, and using AI as a way to allow the seep to communicate with us, grants us the ability to trust and communicate with things beyond ourselves. This mysticism allows us to recognize our place within this world, rather than over this world.
Everything we’re doing to access this symbiosis is already ingrained in Indigenous practices. We are attempting to realign Western culture’s approach to the living world.Conclusion
As our project and other Eco-Art projects currently underway demonstrate, humanity’s gift of creativity is key in developing innovative solutions and may unlock solutions needed to reverse climate collapse.
1.
Altamira Cave Paintings
Photo by Dario Lorenzetti CCL
2.
Himba woman (northern Namibia) smiling to the camera with hair adorned with red ochre. Photo by Yves Picq http://veton.picq.fr CCL
3.
Mursi Boys
Photo by Rod Waddington CCL
4.
Coal Miners
Photo by Facebook/Kentucky Coal Towns
5.
Mechanized Coal Mining, Photo courtesy of Rakes, Paul H.
6.
Room and Pillar Mining, photo source unknown
7.
Textile mills billowing smoke into the atmosphere in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1910, Photo by National Park Service
8.
Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway
By Joseph Mallord William Turner 1844
Photo courtesy of the National Gallery Picture Library
9.
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884, Georges Seurat
Photo courtesy of Art Institute Chicago
10.
Seated Figures, Study for "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" 1884-1885
Photo courtesy of the Harvard Art Museum
11.
Smoke pours from Consolidation Coal Co.’s No. 9 Mine in Farmington, West Virginia, in November 1968. Seventy-eight miners died in the disaster, and 19 remain entombed underground. | Charleston Gazette Photo by LAWRENCE PIERCE
12.
Mountain Top Removal mining in Sheep Knob, W.Va., Photo by Kent Kessinger
13.
Contaminated water—polluted by old, closed gold mines in Montana’s Little Rocky Mountains—flows down the peaks toward the Fort Belknap Indian Community’s reservation in September 2021. PHOTO BY KATY SPENCE/MONTANA ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION CENTER
14.
The Lightning Field (1977), by the American sculptor Walter De Maria, is a work of Land Art situated in a remote area of the high desert of western New Mexico.
Photo courtesy of Dia Art Foundation
15.
Photograph of Robert Smithson's earthwork, Spiral Jetty, located at Rozel Point, Utah on the shore of the Great Salt Lake
© Holt/Smithson Foundation and Dia Art Foundation
16.
Sun Tunnels, Nancy Holt 1973-76 Great Basin Desert, Utah
© Holt/Smithson Foundation and Dia Art Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York
17.
Revival Field - 1991-ongoing plants, industrial fencing on a hazardous waste landfill
an ongoing project in conjunction with Dr. Rufus Chaney, senior research agronomist, USDA Photo by Mel Chin
18.
Tree Mountain - A Living Time Capsule-11,000 Trees, 11,000 People, 400 Years, 1992-96, (420 x 270 x 28 meters) Ylojarvi, Finland
© Agnes Denes
19.
Swale, a floating food forest that invites the public to cultivate fresh food as it travels through NYC harbors
Photo Courtesy of Mary Mattingly
20.
Pollution to Paint project participants filter Acid Mine Drainage to create iron oxide pigments.
Photo courtesy of Ohio University
21.
Iron oxide pigments are made into oil paints.
Photo courtesy of Louise O’Rourke
22.
Rural Action, Americorps, and Ohio University Students join the Pollution to Paint team at Corning, Ohio.
Photo Courtesy of Ohio University
23.
Gamblin Artist Colors new set using iron oxide pigments from Acid Mine Drainage
Photo Courtesy of Gamblin Artists Colors
24.
InHabitat project participants imbed artistic sculptures into the Acid Mine Drainage ecosystem to collect data and iron oxides.
Photo by Lucy Osborne
25.
After a few weeks InHabitat sculptures (called InHabitants) are coated in iron oxide deposits.
Photo by Lucy Osborne
26.
InHabitat project participants with their sculpted ‘InHabitants’
Photo by Lucy Osborne
27.
InHabitants submerged in the acid mine seep at Truetown, Ohio.
Photo by John Sabraw
28.
InHabitat participants
Photo by Lucy OsborneNotations:
(1) (source: https://melchin.org/oeuvre/revival-field/ )
(2) (source: https://www.alansonfiststudio.com/install/pool-of-virgin-earth )
(3) (source: https://jeanshin.com/freshwater )
(4) (source: https://kimabeles.com/smog-collectors/ )
(5) (source: http://www.agnesdenesstudio.com/works1.html )
(6) (source: https://www.swalenyc.org/new-page )
(7) (source: https://www.angelovermeulen.net/?portfolio=biomodd )