After much deliberation over the break, I’ve decided to return to representing the effects of climate change in clay and ceramic.

For my directed studio course with David this semester, his first assignment is to come up with ten ideas. Five of these should be strictly illustrative, straight-up objects, and five should be about process. In 2018, I came up with the idea to represent melting glaciers via the form of the cup. I’d like to return to that idea and create other pieces that resemble functional ware (cups, bowls, plates) but that are purely conceptual representations of other effects of climate change.

Here’s what I’ve got.

But first, the effects of climate change include:

• drought
• flooding
• forest fires
• intense storms
• extreme winds
• heatwaves
• ice loss
• rising sea levels
• biodiversity loss (contributing to the 6th mass extinction)
• increase in disease
• increase in pests (ex. mountain pine beetle)
• ocean acidification
• mass migration (human)
• hunger and water shortages
• collapse of economic systems
• emotional toll

Illustrative Objects

1. a plate that looks like dried mud

Here in the Canadian prairie, where agriculture is a major resource (and one which also significantly contributes to climate change), I know that drought is going to be a major problem in the future in part because of diminishing runoff from mountains and in part because of changing weather patterns that will likely mean extended periods of low-precipitation rates. The processes we employ to grow the food we eat are factors leading to our future food shortages. A plate is symbolic of eating.

I’d use terracotta for this piece, and likely leave it unfired.

(photos from the bank of South Saskatchewan River, near Leader Sask, 2015)

2. A partner piece to the one above, a plate made to mimic flat pieces of sea ice

I’d use fired porcelain (polar ice, cone 6) with either no glaze or a transparent glaze that in an oxidized firing gives a blue hue.

OR a plate that mimics one solid larger piece of arctic ice:

I could imagine having slabs that mimic these sea ice forms set on a dinning table with tableware.

I’m less sure about how I’d connect the form of a plate to these pieces of ice. A cup would be a better form for this representation, but artistically, the shape of a plate is more suitable. Actually, the fact that people may not see the connection between arctic ice melt and our everyday life and survival needs (such as the food we put on our plate) is in itself an important issue to draw attention to. I’d have to think about this more.

3. A bowl shape formed of what looks like pieces of bleached coral.

As excessive carbon dioxide is absorbed into oceans, it lowers the water’s pH, making it more acidic and leading to coral bleaching.

This would be a piece that involves hand-building, and it would require considerable time and experimentation to achieve the look I’m after. I’d use unglazed polar ice porcelain for this piece.

4. a plate formed from dead bees

There are several causes for biodiversity loss and the mass extinction event we are seeing, and climate change will become a major one of those issues as time goes on. Weakened by pesticides, mono-culture, and other anthropogenic changes to their environment, insects are weakened and particularly susceptible to the effects of climate change. We are experiencing what has come to be known as the insect apocalypse. This is not good for anyone alive on the planet.

I’d attempt to make this plate out of bees cast in fired porcelain slip, but I’d also consider leaving it as a plate shaped out of dead bees (no clay involved).

5. A plate that shows the edge of an undercut glacier

Glaciers are melting much faster than scientists have predicted, and one reason appears to be that they are becoming undercut by currents of warm water.

I can imagine a piece of porcelain in the shape of a glacier on one side that gradually morphs into the shape of a dinner plate on the other side.

6. a bowl with a single ridge of trees standing on its lip

Forests are in danger as a result of climate change for two main reasons: increases in forest fires due to drought and storms; mass movement of insects that destroy trees. The image below is what remains after clear cutting (not an effect of climate change), but I have this image in mind as I think about the precarity of our forests facing climate change.

I can imagine a bowl with a circle of trees coming out of its lip. Would they be burned? I don’t know yet. This isn’t a strong idea to begin with, but hey, it’s a sixth…

Process Pieces

1. a plate made of only unfired porcelain dust that viewers could watch blow away on a video of this process taking place

Areas of intense drought set to double, and areas desertification will continue to grow. The IPCC reports on this in their “Special Report on Climate Change and the Land: Desertification.” (FYI: The University of Regina’s Margot Hulbert has worked on policy documents for the IPCC on this topic.)

Here in the Canadian prairies, drought will likely be one of the largest and most devastating consequences of climate change as time passes. WaterCanada reports that

Canada faces its own land degradation challenges. Most people associate dryland regions with a hot and dry climate. However, large parts of the Canadian Prairie provinces—Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba — can be classified as drylands. They are also enormously important agricultural areas, accounting for 60 per cent of the cropland and 80 per cent of the rangeland in Canada.

The Prairies expect to see longer and more intense periods of drought interspersed with major flooding with future climate change. And although North America is one of five regions identified by the UN as facing relatively fewer challenges related to land compared to the countries most at risk, the region does face significant water stress challenges.

WaterCanada

I can imagine this plate of dust which blows away (or simply crumbles on a plinth) being an apt representation of the situation we’re facing and will be facing more so in the near and distant future.

2. a stop motion video of one of my Saskatchewan Glacier cups disintegrating

The group of “snowflake cups” I made between 2019-2020 is my most successful work to date. Representing the fragility of the world’s glaciers at this time, the cups also draw a connection between the glaciers’ demise and our own survival: 80% of our drinking water in this part of Saskatchewan, for instance, is made up of mountain runoff.

I created a rough trial of this video in 2019, but I’ve been wanting to return to the idea and make it more successful.

3. a stack of fired porcelain plates on the brink of being destroyed

This idea is quite outrageous, but it’s one I came up with when pressed to find ten ideas in a week…

I imagine using a machine similar to one that I was recently introduced to in an episode of the Netflix show Sherlock. In this episode, “The Blind Banker,” we see a tool of ancient Chinese escapology in use. To quote from the website Kulture: Asian American Media Watchdog,

At 1:02:00, Sherlock, Watson and Sarah (Watson’s white date, played by Zoe Telford)) enter the tent of the Chinese circus in town. […] The act is supposed to be one of [an Asian man] escaping before being impaled by a crossbow’s bolt. The crossbow is attached to a delicate string that will deploy once weight is placed upon it. The Asian woman stabs a sandbag attached to a string an pulley that begins to lower a weight toward the delicate string attached to the crossbow. The three white heroes look onward at the seemingly bizarre cultural act.

source

This machine that I would construct would employ the idea of the sandbag rising as sand pours from a hole in its fabric. As it rises, another part of the contraption lowers. At a certain point, the part that is being lowered would trigger another weight to fall. This weight would land on a stack of porcelain plates, destroying them.

It’s a stretch, and so likely not a very good idea, but the sand loss would symbolize the planet’s sixth mass extinction that we are beginning to witness: grain by grain… species by species. The Guardian reported in 2017 that

A “biological annihilation” of wildlife in recent decades means a sixth mass extinction in Earth’s history is under way and is more severe than previously feared, according to research.

Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction Event Under Way, Scientists Warn

At some point, the life systems that support us, and which we have been taking advantage of for centuries, are going to collapse to such a degree that our own survival is threatened. With the insect apocalypse I mention above, for instance, our pollinators are dying at such a rate that simply growing our crops will increasingly become a dire challenge.

4. a cup that keeps rising, filling, and sinking in a tank of water

The idea of a tank of water rising and emptying is one I take from an installation in Times Square, Holoscenes, in which performance artists took turns carrying out mundane daily tasks while in a 12 ton tank of water that would continuously fill and empty:

I imagine having a much smaller (10″x10″x18″ or so) tank of water with a cup inside of it that somehow (???) will continuously rise and fall. How can we keep our cup full and upright?

5. For an even wilder idea… a typhoon tank, similar to what we have at our local Science Centre, that people can add plates into which will immediately spiral and crash

I can’t find an image of the one we have here, but there is (or used to be) a plexiglass box near the stairs to the second floor of the Science Centre that had a crank people could use which would induce a mini whirlwind. As tornadoes are going to become more common in this part of Canada in the future, I can imagine employing something like this. Perhaps audience members could participate by somehow inserting a plate into the box to watch it smash? Yeah, pretty crazy. Hmmm.

That’s all I’ve had time to come up with. Let’s see if I carry out any of the above ideas over the next three months.