Friday, November 11, 2022

Nathalie Miebach Weaves Data and Anecdotes into Expansive Sculptures to Raise Awareness of the Climate Crisis

A sculpture by Nathalie Miebach that visualizes climate and weather data.

“Harvey’s Twitter SOS” (2019), paper, wood, vinyl, and data, 84 x 108 x 12 inches. All images © Nathalie Miebach, shared with permission

For Boston-based artist Nathalie Miebach, art is a way to translate scientific data into a visual language of patterns and relationships. In 2007, when she first began to make works that explored weather and climate change, she wanted to better understand the science. “Each piece began with a specific question I had and then the sculpture would attempt to answer it. Over time, I began to be more interested not in how weather instruments record weather, but how we as a species respond to it,” she tells Colossal. “That’s when I began to look at extreme weather events such as floods, storms, and fires.”

Basketweaving plays a central role in Miebach’s practice as it both physically and metaphorically weaves together materials and information. The type of data she collects is both statistical and anecdotal, combining scientific inquiry with personal experiences. “Harvey’s Twitter SOS,” for example, translates 2017 data maps about Hurricane Harvey published by The New York Times. “The inner quilt is made up of shapes that map out income distribution in Houston and uses the city’s highway system as a visual anchor. Various types of information related to Harvey are stitched onto the quilt, including Twitter messages that were sent out during the storm,” she says. Each piece contains numerous pathways, repetitions, and connections, redolent of Rube Goldberg machines in which cause and effect play a central role.

During the past three years, the artist’s work also collates Covid-19 data alongside climate information. “Spinning Towards a New Normal,” on view currently at Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, translates Covid-19 infection, death, and vaccination rates for Germany, Italy, and Spain into the form of a spinning top with a plumb bob, representing the struggle of communities and economies to find stability. “We are not invincible, and neither is this planet,” she warns. “For the first time in human history, we have all experienced how vulnerable we can be as a species. The recent work I have been doing is trying to look at these broader environmental changes we are now seeing through this lens of vulnerability.”

You can see Miebach’s work in All Hands On: Basketry at Staatliche Museen zu Berlin through May 25, 2023, and Climate Action, Inspiring Change at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, through June 25, 2023. Explore more of her work on her website and follow updates on Instagram.

 

A sculpture by Nathalie Miebach that visualizes climate and weather data.

“Spinning Towards a New Normal” (2022), reed, wood, and data, 20 x 20 x 25 inches

A sculpture by Nathalie Miebach that visualizes climate and weather data.

Detail of “Harvey’s Twitter SOS”

Two details of a sculpture by Nathalie Miebach that visualizes climate and weather data.

Details of “Spinning Towards a New Normal”

A sculpture by Nathalie Miebach that visualizes climate and weather data.

“Changing Lines” (2022), paper, wood, and data, 120 x 96 x 10 inches

A sculpture by Nathalie Miebach that visualizes climate and weather data.

“She Cast Her Circles Wide” (2016), rope, paper, wood, and data, 25 x 25 x 27 inches

A detail of a sculpture by Nathalie Miebach that visualizes climate and weather data.

Detail of “Harvey’s Twitter SOS”

A sculpture by Nathalie Miebach that visualizes climate and weather data.

“The Blindness of Seeing Patterns” (2021), paper, wood, and weather and Covid-19 data, 84 x 60 x 6 inches

Details of a sculpture by Nathalie Miebach that visualizes climate and weather data.

Details of “The Blindness of Seeing Patterns”

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Nathalie Miebach Weaves Data and Anecdotes into Expansive Sculptures to Raise Awareness of the Climate Crisis appeared first on Colossal.



from Colossal https://ift.tt/nUfMukZ
via IFTTT

No comments:

Post a Comment

A Knotted Octopus Carved Directly into Two Pianos Entwines Maskull Lasserre’s New Musical Sculpture

“The Third Octave” (2023). All images © Maskull Lasserre, shared with permission Behind the hammers and pins of most upright pianos is a ...