Christina Seely
TERRA SYSTEMA. TEMPO
With Terra Systema. Tempo (2017) we as viewers find ourselves at the very heart of an audiovisual dialogue between ecosystems both Arctic and tropical, symbolising the Earth’s power of self-renewal. On the one hand, the cycle of water; on the other, the cleansing of the air through the Earth’s ‘green lung’, its breathing organ. Here the individual stands symbolically at the very heart of the entire earth system. In her two-channel video installation with which the exhibition concludes, Christina Seely contrasts contemplative photographs of nature shot in the Panamanian rainforest and Arctic Greenland. The work itself was created over a period of several years: first, at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute on the island of Barro Colorado in the Panama Canal; later, in collaboration with scientists from the Institute of Arctic Studies at Dartmouth College. The impact of man-made global warming is particularly noticeable in these two regions of the world so far apart geographically. Terra Systema. Tempo opens up a soothing and secure space, inviting us to grasp the planet as a living, breathing organism so we are better able to understand our relationship with it. Seely succeeds not only in bridging the gap between scientific data and emotions, but in raising our awareness of our own fragility and that of nature.
Christina Seely, born 1976, lives in New Hampshire, USA.
Artist Statement
"I would call myself an activist, though I don't use an overt narrative to point what's happening, but instead use and create this kind of emotional portals to build and cultivate an empathic exchange between the audience and the planet."
Christina Seely, artist