Meredith Leich

Arlington, Massachusetts

“I aim for wonder, imagination, and even humor as means of creating a receptive state in which to consider a frightening future—to create a light in the darkness.”

Meredith Leich is an animator, watercolorist, and installation artist whose work explores cities, place-based histories, and climate change. All of her work responds in some way to the climate crisis, which she approaches through scientific research and visual exploration. Seen here are photographs documenting Leich’s projects Animated Drawings for a Glacier (2018-2021) and At the Currents’ Edge (2022). With both projects, she projects animated drawings onto dark surfaces with the intent of shedding light on the tremendous past and future power of the glacier to shape the world.

In the photographs seen here, we notice the dramatic contrast between the bright lights of the projections and dark backgrounds. While the projected light is the focal point, we can also explore the background scenery. In all cases, the moving water has become softly blurred, while the still elements–including rocks, seaweed, and a thick metal chain–are in sharp focus. This element helps us to consider the passage of time, invoking in our imaginations the long timescale of glacial motion.

Meredith Leich

Arlington, Massachusetts

Animated Drawings for a Glacier-Cuttyhunk, 2021

Performance documentation photograph

Courtesy of the artist

Meredith Leich

Arlington, Massachusetts

Animated Drawings for a Glacier-Kennicott, 2018

Performance documentation photograph

Courtesy of the artist

Meredith Leich

Arlington, Massachusetts

Animated Drawings for a Glacier - Flow, 2018

Charcoal drawing; artifact of the animation process

Courtesy of the artist

Meredith Leich

Arlington, Massachusetts

At the Currents’ Edge, 2022

Performance documentation photograph

Courtesy of the artist

I created At the Currents’ Edge (2022), a site-specific video projection, for a light festival in the coastal village of Skagaströnd, Iceland. I was inspired by the 2021 scientific observations that the Gulf Stream, which contributes to Iceland’s habitability, is slowing down and could collapse, a change that would drastically shift weather patterns on both sides of the Atlantic. Both frightened and enthralled by these powerful ocean dynamics, I created in response a hybrid watercolor-animation and experimental video collage that echoes the forms of gyres, meanders, eddies, and streams of the ocean’s currents, and I projected the video onto a found brass boat propeller at Skagaströnd’s coast, looking west over the Atlantic.