TIDE
TIDE
Each glass contains a miniature model of a house cast out of a material the artist has developed, that has the same refractive index as water, making the houses invisible when they are submerged. Tide is responding to the next American housing crisis: property that has lost its value due to the effects of rising water and climate change.
By contrasting the opulent image of a champagne glass pyramid with the crisis of climate change and rising flood risk, Tide creates a visual metaphor for the fragility hidden within the current housing market. This crisis is already part of the lexicon—when someone owes more than a house is worth, people say the mortgage is “underwater.” Over the course of the show, the slow drip will gradually fill the pyramid, flooding the interconnected glasses and making the houses invisible. Through the fluctuating visibility of these houses, Tide calls attention to the way climate change continues to create uncertainty in neighborhoods, long after the news cycle has moved on from each individual extreme weather event.
“As rising seas continue advancing upon coastlines, millions of people in the US alone are at risk of displacement. (Worldwide, one estimate says the number could be close to 500 million people.) To illustrate this threat, new media artist Matt Kenyon designed two haunting art installations — called TIDE and Cloud ”
Funded in part by the University at Buffalo OVPRED/HI Research Funding in the Arts and Humanities.
