Articles

Morsell: You recently attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Why?

Colburn: The conference was supposed to be a pivotal moment in the politics of climate change, and in some ways it was. I'm fascinated by the political system surrounding climate change, and the conference related well to a project I'm working on which has to do with frontiers, and with looking at the earth's last vestiges of wilderness, at uncommodified parts of the globe. Also, I am teaching a course on Art and Climate Change at the California College of Art this semester.

Morsell: What unexplored frontiers were discussed there?

Colburn: First, I should say that by "unexplored," I mean in a scientific sense as well as in the grand tradition of exploration and exploitation. My particular interest tends to be on remote parts of the earth that are experiencing unprecedented levels of exploration, exploitation and visitation, but that also play important roles in climate. There's lots going on regarding the Arctic--the more interesting panels I went to focused on ways that indigenous communities are embracing science as a political tool to lobby on climate and territory issues. Panels I went to about the Amazon were more specifically related to frontiers, because, in the Amazon, there's a lot of remote wilderness, and there are still something like fifty to sixty uncontacted tribes.

Morsell: How would you characterize the emotional tone of the conference?

Colburn: I saw really passionate people, scientists and politicians alike, not getting anywhere. Of course, my access was limited to events happening around the talks, rather than the debates themselves, which were restricted to high-level delegates. A lot hinged on the conversation between the U.S. and China, and a few different countries that have a lot of power. The difference in what the poorer countries of the world need and what the industrialized world needs is dramatic--most of the industrialized world isn't expected to get the biggest effects of climate change. Currently, a lot of the problems disproportionately affect Africa, island nations and the Arctic. I witnessed real desperation. On December 14th there was a walkout with the small-island-nation contingent, and it stopped all the talks. They're very loud, and really impassioned, because they have to be. The survival of entire cultures and countries is at stake. I mean, there are people who are preparing to relocate entire islands.

Morsell: What's your sense of what was accomplished at the conference?

Colburn: I'm not an expert on the topic. However, I can say that, while we're not in a great place after the conference, I expected it to be worse. The U.S. didn't sign anything binding, but they made more steps than have been made in the past, ever. They've committed to reducing emissions a certain amount, which isn't nearly enough, but at least there's more commitment than there's been in the past. And the language is changing for the discussion of climate, and including more, needed, conversations about mitigating deforestation and creating an economy around preserving tropical forests.

Morsell: Let's talk about your artwork. How did you become interested in unexplored territories and frontiers?

Colburn: I have always been interested in the topic in one way or another, beginning with a fascination with early American history and manifest destiny. In 2008 I went on a seafloor mapping expedition in the Arctic. We were making some of the first accurate maps of the Arctic seafloor visualizing that terrain using multibeam sonar, and being part of this modern-day exploration was really compelling. Most of my work has dealt with visualizing things you can't normally see because of scale, or because they're underground or inaccessible or historically removed in some way. The Arctic sea floor was something that is submerged and invisible.

One of the reasons why that area has been so unexplored is because the ice has kept it inaccessible. Now the ice is melting. There is an increase in access and a lot of interest and money going into the oil and gas exploration there. Our government is supporting mapping there to support the UN Convention for the Law of the Sea, which will extend our sovereignty over areas of the Arctic seafloor.

Morsell: Can you describe for our readers the artwork you made from that trip?

Colburn: I created a large map derived directly from the sonar data that we were collecting. It looks at all the areas of the Arctic that have been mapped.

Morsell: Would it be correct to say that in your piece you are representing the map itself, rather than trying to represent what the sea floor actually looks like?

Colburn: Yes.

Morsell: Why represent the abstraction of the map rather than reconstruct the actual experience of the sea floor?

Colburn: For this project, my interest was more in the map than in the actual place. I am looking at that human impulse to make the unknown visible, to visualize things in order to better understand them. I am interested in the process and the politics of getting these little bits of data, and I am equally interested in the missing information. We were crashing through sometimes three meters of ice, and that makes a lot of sound that interrupts the sonar, so there are gaps in the data. I was interested in the flaws in collection.

Morsell: Tell us about your trip to Peru.

Colburn: I went to Peru with the Cape Farewell Project, which is a nonprofit based in London. They take artists and scientists on expeditions together where everybody does their own climate-change-related research. The Cape Farewell Project's aim is to put climate-change issues into the cultural realm for discussion, trying to foster a cultural change in how we look at the world through art. So I went with them to Peru and we went to the Andes, started at the glaciers and then more or less followed the water of the glaciers down through the cloud forest and into the Amazon Basin. That section of southeastern Peru is the most biodiverse place on the planet, and it contains several uncontacted tribes. It has just started being explored for oil by Hunt Oil, from Texas. The territory they are exploring in is part of two national parks and an indigenous communal preserve, but the government of Peru has passed legislation stating that anything under the surface of the earth--oil, gas, minerals--belongs to all of Peru, so there are all kinds of problems over the issue of oil. This political side of exploration in that area is very interesting to me in the same way that it is in the Arctic. There are many ties between the scientific research being conducted and the research that leads to the discovery of oil and gas.

Morsell: Did you find it productive to engage with scientists?

Colburn: Yes. I think there are a lot of similarities between how scientists work and how artists work. Data collection is really process oriented and strange.

Morsell: Some artists just stay home in their studios and make stuff from there. Why do you like to go out in the world and have these adventures?

Colburn: Jeez, who doesn't? [laughs] I like researching things. It's like being in school eternally. But also, my work is really labor intensive, and I sit in my studio for long hours and cut out little scraps of paper, and I just wanted to get out more. You look at things differently when you are in the landscape. It's less narcissistic for sure, which is more interesting. It's less about the interior world of one's own mind and more about engaging with a larger context. There are so many good reasons for it. With respect to climate issues, I admit it's problematic to jump on airplanes and travel around the world.

Morsell: We could get bogged down in the quandaries of that, but--You have said that you were aesthetically attracted to abstraction. The concrete world is so beautiful and interesting. What interests you about abstraction?

Colburn: I don't know that the question is as pertinent as it used to be for me. When I was younger, I didn't know how to do anything but very literal, representative things, and abstraction was important for me when I was figuring out how to make art that was interesting. But I think now abstraction is just a language for me. I'm still interested in it as a code. Whenever you have visual information that is tied to a piece of data, there's a real disconnect between the way the thing looks and the information. I am interested in the mental leap required to visualize data and the visual language we use to describe information.

Morsell: You have also made images about the body where you mapped the circulatory system. Why?

Colburn: In a lot of anatomical models, the circulatory system will be spread out and arranged into a flat plane. That's really similar to how you map something. You abstract it by unfolding it and making it manageable. When you look at something that is not normally visible, you have to change it completely in order to understand it. I've also mapped waterways and sewers, and visually there are a lot of similarities between how we describe those things and how we describe body systems in maps. Out of context, you might not know if it is a waterway or a circulatory system.

Morsell: You have said it's a hard time to be an artist. Why?

Colburn: Politically, these times are really complicated, and the environment is a mess. It seems really narcissistic and decadent to make art objects, rather than do something that plays a more concrete social role. Of course, art can play a social role, but I struggle to make work that encompasses the political content I am interested in without sacrificing my artistic process. It's really hard to make political work that's still fresh and challenging in an artistic way. In Artists in a Time of War, Howard Zinn talks about the role of artists historically as reflectors of society: artists can express something about the world that might not be seen any other way. Part of that role is to show something beautiful in times of strife, when there might not be a whole lot of beauty around. It is important to have artists remind us of the better parts of human society.

Morsell: You spend time confronting change, confronting things we may have to say farewell to. How does that make you feel?

Colburn: Bad! It makes me feel terrible. Really frustrated. The more I know, the more bleak my worldview becomes. But it's human nature to keep engaged. I think it's actually pretty rare that someone feels defeated and just gives up. Humans are always trying to embrace optimism and make change and move forward, and I'm a victim to that impulse, probably.

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Read the column inspired by Adriane Colburn in The Weekly Apocalypse.