Anita Glesta's WATERSHED to Address Climate Change at London's Totally Thames Festival, Sept 22 - 27
By: Sally Henry Fuller Sep. 04, 2015
"WATERSHED was filmed by the artist in Colombia South America. Her live footage is of the Piracu fish, an Amazonian fish that was once at the point of extinction in a feeding frenzy and swimming peacefully in the Pacific waters. The large scale projection WATERSHED which she filmed and editied in a unique painterly way, addresses climate change through visual seduction. The moving imagery invites people to learn more about the issues affecting the planet's water due to the warming of the oceans and the rising of the tides. The mesmerizing imagery is at once healing and provocative". Installing WATERSHED along the Thames River raises awareness of London's proximity to its major river and surrounding ocean, highlighting urban life's vulnerability to the rise in temperature and changes in salinity; and, by extension, the extremes of unprecedented tidal levels and storms. By transforming the urban landscape into a virtual sea, WATERSHED allows for a viscerally engaging and emotional connection to these complex and contemporary issues, where viewers are immersed directly into dialogue with their surroundings, with each other, and with the art itself.
Anita Glesta, WATERSHED, 2013, video stills, limited edition WATERSHED's first iteration was in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in Lower Manhattan as part of the city's New Museum's, "City of Ideas Festival", 2013. The artist writes: "I began WATERSHED when I returned to New York after the 2009 COP 15 Climate Change conference in Copenhagen. I could not help but think about the island of Manhattan as a fragile piece of earth, far closer to the Atlantic Ocean than we realize as we go about our daily lives. After Super Storm Sandy, I was invited to have WATERSHED shown as an indoor and outdoor work during the New Museum Festival of Ideas. "Since the installation with the New Museum, I have developed this work further, strengthening its impact through the integration of scientific data. Its scale and its presence as a public forum are key to transforming this work into an informational vehicle. In its newest iteration, WATERSHED ideally will catalyze a conversation about climate change and infrastructure issues that are critical to the future of waterfront cities. The work acts as a vehicle, preparing viewers to be receptive to the issues around global climate change in a new way." WATERSHED video links: CYNTHIA-REEVES, Proposal for London, WATERSHED excerpts
Anita Glesta, WATERSHED on the National Theater, London (proposal) 2015 all rights reserved - Project courtesy of CYNTHIA-REEVES New York
The Totally Thames River Festival takes place over the month of September and brings the river to life via an exciting season of arts, cultural and river events throughout the 42-mile stretch of the Thames in London. Adrian Evans, the Festival's Director, has organized a month-long celebration of the river with vanguard art installations, public performances, and environmental awareness projects. The program is promoted widely via partner organizations, both nationally and internationally. In 2014, 2.7 million people attended over 170 Totally Thames events and the London-wide marketing and PR campaign reached 124 million people. Totally Thames is supported by The Mayor of London, London First, Arts Council England, Port of London Authority and all 17 London boroughs with a riverfront.
Totally Thames is endorsed and supported by The Mayor of London, London First, Arts Council England, Port of London Authority and all 17 London boroughs with a riverfront. It is organised and delivered by Thames Festival Trust. The charitable trust has a 17-year track record in delivering high quality river and riverfront events including the Thames Festival and The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Pageant. Anita Glesta's work has been installed in public spaces as well as galleries, museums, and non-profit spaces in New York and internationally. Solo Exhibitions have included White Columns Gallery, White Box, Black and White Gallery, Sculpture Center, the Queens Museum, and other galleries and museums.
A highly recognized artist in the public realm, Glesta has worked on several large-scale international projects. Among these projects is a permanent outdoor integrated landscape sculpture for the Federal Census Bureau Building in Washington, DC, commissioned by the General Services Administration Art and Architecture program (2010), and the multi media project, Gernika/ Guernica, which was shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Krakow and the Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology in Beijing in 2013. She did a commissioned video project for the United Nations for the Climate Change conference in Copenhagen (2010); and, a multi-channel video installation "Cycle Interrupted" shown at the Copenhagen Summit in 2009 and for the Cancun Summit in 2010, a work that is currently installed in the non-profit Los Angeles space, LACE. This last project, a multi channeled video, addresses how women in third world countries are affected by climate change.
Project partners include Cape Farewell and its initiative in Paris this September, ArtCOP21. WATERSHED is sponsored by Generation Investment, Arcadis and by CYNTHIA-REEVES. Anita Glesta is represented by CYNTHIA-REEVES New York. An upcoming exhibition is slated for the artist at the gallery's MASS MoCA campus location in North Adams for Spring, 2016, focusing on another signature video installation, SPIN. For more information, please call the gallery at: 212.714.0044 or visit the gallery online at cynthia-reeves.com. High-resolution images available upon request.
Totally Thames Festival For more information
CYNTHIA-REEVES represents an international roster of established artists who share a process-apparent sensibility in their art. We are committed to artwork that demonstrates an authentic voice, an innovative use of materials and an appreciation of the mark in diverse media: site-based installation, video, sculpture, painting and works on paper. A sub-text to the gallery's program is artwork that provokes a discourse around the convergence of art and science, as well as our relationship to the natural world - a discourse essential to the examination of contemporary art and culture within the context of these broader challenges.
A sub-text to the gallery's program is artwork that celebrates the convergence of art and science, as well as our relationship to the natural world - a discourse essential to the examination of contemporary art and culture within the context of these broader challenges.
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