World Ocean Day Exhibition
June 9th - 18th at the Belle Isle Aquarium
IN PARNTERSHIP WITH:
Goal:
Art and design are powerful ways to impact society and drive societal change due to their role in conveying human values and ideas, developing social, cultural, and individual identities, and offering innovative approaches to communication and dialogue around complex issues. This exhibition will highlight 17 artists from across Michigan and Ontario, using art and design as a voice in the climate action narrative for our Great Lakes region.
All waterways connect to each other. Belle Isle is a 982-acre island in the Detroit River, a shared international waterway. The Detroit River flows into the Great Lakes, which enters into the World's Ocean through the St. Lawrence River. Our behavior locally has a global impact. The goal of this exhibition of work is to evoke conversations, critical thinking, self-assessment, and solution-based action to plastic pollution and its impact on our waterways in Detroit, the Great Lakes, and around the world.
Selected Works
Sophia Gallette
Reclaimed Blossoms
Plastic water bottles, fishing line, gold marker
As a young designer and a lifelong Michigander, Sophia Gallette has enjoyed countless trips to the beautiful lakes and the vast beaches across our great state and is worried about the unending flow of plastic pollution that is being deposited in and along the shores. Her work is made from recovered, single-use plastic, the same plastic found littering Michigan communities, breaking up into microplastics, and impacting our Great Lakes beaches and waterways.
Reclaimed Blossoms transforms materials from how they were found, giving littered plastic new life. It highlights how our choices, and the products that we use every day, have consequences on local and global scales. Her work emphasizes how design can serve as a powerful tool to evoke change.
Price: $120 USD Contact Information: sgallett@umich.edu
Hannah Tizedes
Connection
Plastic pieces collected from the Detroit River, Great Lakes, and ocean, monofilament
Connection, created by artist and activist, Hannah Tizedes, represents the 22 million pounds of plastic entering our Great Lakes every year and the trillions of pieces afloat in our waters, polluting our most precious natural resources.
The installation demonstrates how communities along the Detroit River and Great Lakes are directly connected to the Ocean. The installation invites you to take a deeper look at the plastic items polluting shorelines everywhere, from your local beach to coastlines around the world. It asks the viewer, “where is away?” when you throw your trash away. It guides you to make the connection as to how items we use in our daily lives, mostly single-use and out of convenience, are anything but short-lived. Plastic, including single-use, was made to last forever. And its consequences on our waters, aquatic life, and human health do.
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Karina Scott
Vancouver Island
Water mixable oil and collected trash collage on canvas
Karina Scott is a Canadian artist and BFA student at the University of Windsor. Vancouver Island seeks to highlight the hidden damage that pollution causes to our waterways.
At first glance, the viewer sees a landscape of blue water, but look a little closer and you notice the piles of discarded trash beneath. Her work encourages the viewer to think deeply about what we may not see at the surface level.
Price: $800 CAD Contact Information: karinascottart@gmail.com
Mariana Diaz Perez
Eliminated
Colored pencils, graphite, acrylic paint, watercolors
Mariana Diaz Perez is a graduating senior at Lake Orion High School in Orion Township, Michigan. In her piece, she highlights ocean preservation and plastic pollution impacts by depicting the loss of color in coral and the ocean as it has been, and continues to be, impacted. The more plastic produced, the greater amount of carbon dioxide emitted into our atmosphere. Our oceans absorb it, which can lead to ocean acidification. This causes coral to lose its color and marine life to slowly disappear. Eliminated represents United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14: Life Below Water. This goal stands to lower the amount of pollution to decrease ocean acidification. By depicting a person painting onto the coral, the artist hopes to inspire the viewer to strive for change; To revive the color to a magnificent environment marine life calls home and to bring back what we have ‘eliminated’ before it’s too late.
Price: $250 USD Contact Information: marianadiaz2804@gmail.com
Ronise
Ocean Gold
Acrylic, gold, and copper leaf, joint compond
This artwork is an abstract reflection of the transformation that takes place as plastics enter our bodies of water, begin to break up and affect our ecosystem. Ocean Gold is exhibited in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14: Life Below Water. In the painting, the various yellow, gold, and copper tones represent the light and strength of the ocean, and the darker undertones of various shades of green and blue represent the dark change from plastic buildup over time. Having taken walks along the Detroit River, Great Lakes, and coastlines around the world, becoming more aware of the amount of plastic polluting our water, and learning of local initiative that supports and sustain our Great Lakes, the artist attempts to express their own personal emotions in this painting through the use of strong knife strokes, flowing paint and an array of bold and beautiful colors that can be found from the Detroit River to the World’s Ocean.
Price: $4,500 USD Contact Information: ronise@roniseartgallery.com
Kelly Salchow MacArthur
Structure of Repudiation
Digital Print
Kelly Salchow MacArthur is a two-time Olympian who has rowed thousands of miles on bodies of water around the world, which has instilled in her a deep connection with the natural environment. She has rowed her shell on protected and pristine waters and those that have been exploited and polluted. Complicit, compliant, complacent, and collective are generalized terms describing the predominant lack of urgency and action necessary to combat environmental disasters. Her work emphasizes that we need to do more, faster.
Price: $400 USD Contact Information: salchow@msu.edu
Wendy Popko
Fresh Waters
Acrylic paint on wood
A mechanical sturgeon swims carelessly alongside an oil pipeline to nip at the bait: a dollar bill fastened to a fishing hook. The artist was inspired by the issues we face with funding for protecting our Great Lakes. The Great Lakes provide us with 20% of the world’s surface fresh water.
NFS
Najah Thomas-Young
White Collar
Bio-leather (bacteria cellulose produced from the kombucha fermentation process), wood, cotton, nails and resin
In the piece "White Collar", the artist represents policy makers who contribute to the mass distribution and production of disposable plastic products. Despite having flesh, represented by the bio-leather, the hollow figure presented has no soul. This apathy has resulted in city-wide plastic pollution issues in Michigan, especially present in underserved communities, that eventually move to our water streams. Through her work, the artist demonstrates her desire to separate from the poisonous societal habits that pollute our vital source of freshwater, the Great Lakes.
The use of the biomaterial made from kombucha is symbolic, however, through this process of experimentation, the artist has found practical uses for the bio-leather. Biomaterial research has led to her experimentation with algae, gelatin, mycelium, and other biomass products that prove to be potential plastic alternatives. This piece represents the destruction and pollution as well as a possible solution that continue to be researched and implemented in her work as an artist, fashion designer and through her biomaterial research and design company, BAN Lab Detroit.
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Mackenzie Krueger
H.O.M.E.S.
Wool yarn, wool roving
This tapestry explores the complex and urgent issue of invasive species in the Great Lakes. The piece aims to shed light on the devastating impact that non-native species such as algae blooms, Asian carp, and zebra mussels have on the delicate ecosystem of this vast body of water. Despite negative impacts, this piece also highlights the ongoing efforts to restore the Great Lakes ecosystem.
As a fiber artist, Mackenzie Krueger is inspired by the potential of fiber art to provoke thought and encourage dialogue about important issues. Her work explores themes related to social justice, environmentalism, and the human experience. She is drawn to the tactile and sensory nature of fiber, which can create a visceral and emotional response in the viewer. Through her use of weaving and needle felting techniques, she strives to create pieces that are visually stunning while also conveying a deeper message. She believes that fiber art can serve as a powerful tool for social and environmental activism and is committed to using art to make a positive impact in the world.
NFS
Leslie Sobel
Toledo Transect
Hand-bound accordion artist book
Leslie Sobel’s work focuses on climate and water. Her art is rooted in scientific imagery, with a background as a painter and printmaker and a love for the natural world. It incorporates photomicroscopy, photography and words with archival inkjet prints and hand binding.
The Toledo Transect project emphasizes Harmful Algae Blooms on Lake Erie and the connections between pollution, overuse of fertilizer, and damage to a vulnerable ecosystem, which are all related to issues of poor human stewardship of our interconnected planet. The artist points out that we make artificial separations between ourselves, and other people let alone other entities living and not. Our concept of separation lets us distance ourselves from caring for each other, for animals, for plants and for the entire world.
Price: $500 USD Contact Information: las@lesliesobel.com
Sara Adlerstein
Cisco: Endangered, Threatened, Extirpated
Oil painting on Masonite, Cisco scales
Sara Adlerstein draws from her experience as a scientist, the cultures she has been immersed in, and her personal life experiences. She has a Ph.D. in aquatic sciences and currently holds a faculty position at the University of Michigan, School for the Environment and Sustainability. Her interdisciplinary nature and the building-crossing bridges between the arts and sciences have opened infinite possibilities of expression.
Cisco is a native fish species from the Great Lakes region. The species was present and abundant in all the Great Lakes except Lake Erie and supported profitable fisheries. Ciscoes were also the main prey for many other native species such as lake trout. Overharvesting imposed mortality by invasive species and spawning habitat degradation caused by urban development, plastic pollution, and other environmental stressors decimated populations in all lakes, and few populations have survived. The artist created this piece after working on a project about the restoration of a remnant Cisco population in Northern Lake Michigan.
Price: $2,900 USD Contact Information: adlerste@umich.edu
John Vassallo
The Marvelous Mudpuppy
Mixed media: watercolor and colored pencil on Strathmore Sketch Premium Recycled paper
John Vassallo is a lifelong Michigan resident and a fine artist with a special passion for Michigan outdoors and wildlife. He paints “en plein air” along the waterways around southeast Michigan. The artist draws from his personal experiences of painting along the Detroit River at Belle Isle.
This piece depicts the artist’s observation of the Amphibian Department of the Detroit Zoo throwing traps, retrieving, and monitoring mudpuppy specimens in urban waterways. The importance of their work is related to this common amphibian being a type of “canary in the coal mine” indicator in measuring the health of the aquatic life in this waterway which is often first spotted in amphibians.
His work portrays the actual hands-on efforts of the National Amphibian Conservation Center (NACC) to gauge the health of the very common local species, the mudpuppy (Necturus maculosus). Specifically, shown in his work, is the act of having a retrieved mudpuppy, having been carefully trapped and temporarily held to evaluate for numerous factors. The data from monitoring mudpuppies provides the NACC with insights into the health of the Detroit River and its aquatic residents. It points to possible contaminants and pollutants that could impact the reproduction, development, and well-being of wildlife.
Price: $400 USD Contact Information: lakefxstudio@gmail.com
Rose S Kuchta
Blemish
Acrylic and thread
Rose S Kuchta chose to use the discus fish to represent aquatic life and the need to protect our planet and its waterways. The fish is depicted upside down to bring awareness to environmental issues. The thread in this painting represents littered plastic pollution. The painting is backlit to represent the toxins throughout local, regional, and global waters. The artist abandoned the painting, leaving it unfinished to represent the fact that so much work is still to be done to protect our planet and its ecosystems. Through art, society can raise awareness about the impact of plastic pollution and the need for sustainable practices. Through their work, the artist hopes to encourage behavior change, asking the viewer to think about their own single-use plastic consumption and how it impacts aquatic life and human health.
Price: $350 USD Contact Information: rkuchta@collegeforcreativestudies.edu
Anika Naik
Time is Flying
Acrylic on canvas with paper flowers
Anika Naik, a graduating senior at Washtenaw International High School in Ypsilanti, Michigan illustrates how the climate crisis is thought of in pieces, with the effects on land, air, and water being separated. However, the ecosystem interconnects each of these aspects causing them to influence one another. Through this piece, the artists use a surrealistic lens to explore these connections.
The eye is a clock, which is representative of the time that is passing by as people watch the world, and our Great Lakes, become polluted. Although the background of this painting consists of clouds, the color of the sky itself resembles a body of water, which creates cohesiveness within the many elements present in her work.
Balloons, a very common item often used for celebration, represent plastic pollution and its impact on aquatic life. Balloons take hundreds of years to break up and end up as microplastics that are ingested by animals. Microplastics then cause animals to feel full and risk death from starvation. The bright yellow flowers represent the potential for growth in society. Although time is quickly passing, if we act now, through individual choices and political action, together we can save our wildlife and waterways.
Price: $50 USD Contact Information: anika.naik25@gmail.com
Doug Cannell
Core Sample
Copper, Sapele
Doug Cannell swims hundreds of miles a year, mostly in open water and often in the Detroit River off Belle Isle. He spends a lot of time immersed in — and thinking about — water. His time in the water is meditative and freeing, an experience that many people share. Part of his "In Open Water" series, Core Sample celebrates the richness, mystery, and depth of the Earth's waters, and the power of water to nourish, challenge and heal.
Price: $1,750 USD Contact Information: doug@magnetcreative.com
Artists Collaboration: ArcPrep, Detroit’s Cass Tech High School Juniors and Salam Rida, Michigan Mellon Fellow at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
Flow Together
MDF, spray paint, acrylic, sand from Belle Isle Beach
The piece Flow Together is an abstract representation of a school of fish. Each component was designed independently and brought together to create one collaborative piece that flows like the Detroit River. Its ambition is that this piece inspires people to think about how they can act locally to impact globally. Individual day-to-day choices have a direct impact on each other and the environment. Although we might not be able to see the collective reality immediately, we must recognize that it is omnipresent.
This project is part of a series of exercises to help students understand the “Part to Whole” concept. Leveraging the Belle Isle Conservancy’s call for Artists and Designers, Detroit Public School Community District (DPSCD) students explored the opportunity from the classroom to the gallery. This group project was completed with 16 high school juniors from Cass Tech High School during their ArcPrep program.
Price: $3,000 USD Contact Information: srida@umich.edu