VCU news

By Traci Garland
Anderson Gallery

The Anderson Gallery’s fall exhibition, “Forecast,” examines the challenges and changes of a planet facing escalating environmental devastation.

The exhibition — which uses sculpture, painting, video, photography, prints and installations to demonstrate flooded fields and cities, erratic weather patterns, lost habitats and vanishing species — opens with a public reception on Friday, Sept. 5, from 5 to 8 p.m., and runs through Dec. 7.

“This exhibition brings together recent work by six artists whose creative practices are propelled by keen attention to the insidious effects of human impact on the planet, in light of climate change and attendant phenomena,” said Ashley Kistler, gallery director and the exhibition’s curator.

The featured artists engage numerous concerns and themes such as the concept of landscape as a bearer of cultural values; the transformation of nature into a commoditized, industrial or synthetic landscape; the complexities underlying geopolitics; and the effects of industry and human behavior on animal habitat and biodiversity.

Adriane Colburn’s mixed-media installations derive from material collected while participating in scientific expeditions, most recently to the Peruvian Amazon. Colburn asks how we come to know and understand a place, especially at a time when industry and climate change threaten the last vestiges of wilderness.

Blane De St. Croix’s projects also grow out of extensive field research, most recently in the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Circle. “Dead Ice,” the title of his massive new sculpture, refers to the motionless, melting remnants of a glacier no longer sustained by climatic conditions.

Amy Balkin’s most recent project, “A People’s Archive of Sinking and Melting,“ is a growing collection of items from places that may disappear due to the combined physical, political and economic impacts of climate change. The items constitute a record of present and anticipated loss in the face of environmental destruction – evidence of what will have been.

Gideon Mendel began his powerful “Drowning World” portraits in 2007 as an ongoing response to climate change. Since then, the series has grown to include images reinforcing a shared vulnerability that supersedes vast differences in the London-based South African photographer’s lives, circumstances and location.

Julie Heffernan confronts environmental devastation ever more trenchantly while also conjuring a post-utopian vision of the future. She transforms the genre of history painting, a tradition to which her complex narratives have been linked, into contemporary allegories that anxiously address the interdependence of self, society and environment.

Mark Dion’s longstanding exploration of environmental issues often probes the effects of industry and human behavior on animal habitat. Dion incorporates elements of the natural sciences and museum display to also interrogate how we document and interpret the natural world.

During the exhibition’s run, patrons will have numerous opportunities to hear directly from the artists through free programs, including gallery talks and a field trip.

On Friday, Sept. 5, Colburn, De St. Croix and Heffernan will conduct a gallery walkabout at 5 p.m., followed by the opening reception at 6 p.m.

On Thursday, Sept. 18, the gallery hosts a Gallery Talk with Dion from 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. Dion will give a lecture on “Adventures in the Nature/Culture Borderlands” from 6 to 7 p.m. at Jepson Hall at the University of Richmond.

On Saturday, Oct. 25, the gallery presents a field trip to study “Local Habitat, Global Impact” from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Inger and Walter Rice Center for Environmental Sciences, VCU’s state-of-the-art field station on the banks of the James River in nearby Charles City County. A walking program led by university scientist-educators will explore how we can better understand global environmental change by studying the flora and fauna in our own ecological backyard. Free shuttle-bus service from the Anderson Gallery will be provided for those who make a reservation. The shuttle departs at 9:15 a.m. and returns by 2 p.m. Box lunches for the return trip can be pre-ordered for $8. For more information, contact artgallery@vcu.edu.

The Anderson Gallery, 907½ W. Franklin St., is open Tuesday–Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, noon–5 p.m. Closed Monday.