This quilt depicts the altered interactions between Great Lake fish species and their surrounding environment due to climate change. Three main ecological concepts are present in this quilt: northward range shifts, changes in the strength and duration of lake stratification, and the temperature-oxygen squeeze experienced by cold water fish. Cold and cool water fish are shifting their ranges north to continue living in their optimal water temperature while warm water fish are expanding into waters they previously were unable to occupy due to warming temperatures.
Sometimes I'll see reporters on the news describing a hurricane while apparently standing in the middle of it. I've always thought that these reporters had to be pretty fearless -- often, in the background, trees sway violently and waves crash against seawalls. This scene is so much more tame when watching it from the comfort of my home, hundreds of miles from where it's being recorded. It's easy to distance myself from the event and move on to something else.
This piece symbolizes the devastating effects of coral bleaching I learned in my freshman Earth Science class, where rising ocean temperatures cause corals to expel their algae, leaving them white and disrupting marine ecosystems. Fascinators, with their intricate and eye-catching beauty, seemed like the perfect medium to show the vibrance of coral reefs.
During my senior year of high school, I undertook a capstone project that had to capture both my learnings and aspirations. One evening, I learned from the news about the decline in the right whale population due to ship strikes and fishing gear. The population is also finding it difficult to adapt to its warming environments.
Under our capitalistic framework of unrestrained growth, our architecture of carbon-producing machines, water-polluting materials, and energy-intensive climate control, has expelled nature from our spaces whilst exacerbating our role in climate change. The Global North, particularly, must rethink its increasing trends of hermeticism—environmental and beyond. These four models—resembling soil core tests—are spaces within a proposed research institution in the American Arid Lands dedicated to preserving and living with nature.
This idea was summoned when I was about 15 years of age, just finding out how much harm the earth takes in each day. I was learning about pollution, seeing wildfires start all over the globe, wars that kill everything around them. As a 15 year old, still finishing high school, I felt helpless. As if I was a little bunny watching my world burn. Unable to move, unable to run, knowing that it will kill everything including me in its sight.
