ON THE HORIZON
Ocean Beach, San Francisco, June 2021 PHOTO: COLECTIVO
ON THE HORIZON Concepts of climate change can feel abstract and often resort to large numbers that quickly become meaningless to an individual. On the Horizon is a temporary installation on shorelines that connects communities to the sea and moves them to an empathic and proactive approach to address rising sea levels. This art installation creates an experience that is emotional, visceral, mind- and heart-altering—inviting the audience into the narrative, making the abstract more tangible to help people understand the consequences of rising sea levels and the impact on their lives, their loved ones, and their community. How do we move beyond our own borders of awareness and complacency into action and change? How do we invoke awakening? “On the Horizon is a migrating installation and will continue making its way to new shores, responding to invitations from other countries around the globe. Video: Rebecca Solnit
WINDOW INTO OUR FUTURE We refer to the ocean as a body of water. How do we make this aging body more relatable to us humans, as she is predicted to rise more than 6.6 feet due to a staggering increase in greenhouse gas emissions and global temperatures in recent years? Holding 24.5 gallons of seawater at the water’s edge, these columns are not only a window into our future but also bodies like ourselves, asking to be seen and acknowledged. Your eyes light upon 16 acrylic resin cylinders filled with salt water. Each stands 6 feet high, right onshore. You walk among them, dance with them, marvel at the beauty of these suspended aqueous forms as they soften, refract, and amplify everything that surrounds you. Mysterious and inspiring, they bring you to wonder at your own physicality, how you ebb and flow as an integral part of the web of life. And this is precisely the intrinsic role you are being invited to play.
Ocean Beach, San Francisco, September 2021 PHOTO: COLECTIVO
Playas de Tijuana, México, November 2021 PHOTO: CARLOS BRAVO
WE MUST ALL CARRY THE WATER LOCAL ENGAGEMENT Each installation is a call to action, from bucket brigades formed by local volunteers who help create the art to collaborations with artists who interact with and celebrate the sea. Most recently, we formed a 200-yard human chain on Ocean Beach, and 30 local volunteers drew 170 gallons out of the surf to fill the cylinders. A preschool near Ocean Beach joined the human chain and painted the buckets with sea fauna. The human chain represents a generational chain. What are we passing down and passing on? Video: Bucket Brigade Video: What legacy do we leave them?
SHAPE LOCAL NARRATIVES ARTIST COLLABORATION On the Horizon recognizes and celebrates that each community has a unique history, and its artists help to create and shape the local narrative. Through interaction with the installation, they articulate the memory, history, and experience of the place. Each location has a different language and culture, which the artists develop and mirror back to the community. Video: Horns at Playas de Tijuana Video: Dance for the Sea by Meredith Webster Video: Dance by Adji Cissoko & Michael Montgomery
Pedro Tellez Mezax and Jose Carlos Perez, muscians, Tijuana, México, November 2021 PHOTO: CARLOS BRAVO
TH featured in Lands End exhibition PHOTO: ANA TERESA FERNÁNDEZ
EXTEND REACH AND IMPACT In addition to creating temporary installations on shorelines, On the Horizon partners with art galleries and museums to exhibit On the Horizon for longer durations. These are opportunities to extend reach, especially if galleries and museums partner with educators and community organizations. Lands End invites visitors to discover artwork in unlikely places and to consider the planet’s health. An international group of 27 artists participated to remind viewers of our interconnectedness via global currents of water and air. Video: On the Horizon opening performance for Lands End exhibition
LATEST PRESS Oil spills, plastic, rising seas: artists invoke climate breakdown in San Francisco exhibition—in pictures NOVEMBER 7, 2021
Set Against the Crashing Waves of the Pacific, a New Art Exhibition Takes On the Climate Crisis NOVEMBER 5, 2021
Automakers Start to Figure Out the Climate Future, JUNE 2, 2021
Playas de Tijuana, México, November 2021 PHOTO: CARLOS BRAVO
ANA TERESA FERNÁNDEZ Operating formally at the intersection of land art, performance, and history painting, Ana Teresa Fernández mines twenty-firstcentury feminism, postcolonial landscapes, and psychological barriers to empathy to open new vistas in the imagination. She does not think in terms of artist and audience. Fernández’s passion is to create moments of activation and change in community and for community. “I create with the hope of palpably transforming people’s outlook toward themselves and all that surrounds them. The reward is feeling boundaries slip away and new respect rise in their place.”
PHOTO: COLECTIVO
LISA ROSE Visual storyteller Lisa Rose founded the Colectivo global communications studio to extend the reach, visibility, and impact of visionary leaders who are not satisfied with the status quo. Lisa’s unique approach, interweaving empathy, art, storytelling, and strategy, has earned her a reputation as a brand whisperer. She brings the full force of Colectivo’s holistic approach to communications—developing strategies, shaping narratives, fostering partnerships, and delighting and activating audiences—to On the Horizon.
PHOTO: COLECTIVO
onthehorizon.org
Designed by