The babble of Boulder Creek running through Basia Irland’s backyard at her childhood home linked art and the environment in her mind from an early age. Her lifelong fascination with the intersection of water and art is the basis of “Water Library,” recently released from UNM Press and available at the UNM Bookstore. The book consists of nine sections focused on projects Irland created during the last 30 years in Africa, Canada, Europe, South America, Southeast Asia and the United States.
Irland, a UNM professor of art, is also showing selected works in “Water Library: Volume by Volume,” an exhibit at the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History continuing through Jan. 27.
Like water itself, Irland’s work captures the tension between permanence and impermanence inherent in art. “I’m really interested in the ephemeral,” she said, “Nothing actually lasts forever.”
One example is “receding/reseeding,” shown above. The intrinsically ephemeral 250 pound sculpture composed of ice, riparian seeds and small stones has long since melted, yet it has also found comparative longevity in a photograph displayed in museum and book.
The sculpture is part of a larger work, “A Gathering of Waters: Boulder Creek, Continental Divide to Confluence,” a collaborative project connecting hundreds of people along Boulder Creek’s 47 miles. Irland said the creek is threatened by the recession of the Arapaho glacier.
Creek water collected in a canteen by participants was frozen, carved into the form of an open book, and embedded with a “text” of columbine, blue spruce and mountain maple seeds. “It’s an international ecological language,” Irland said.
As the ice melted, it released the seeds into the current, generating trees that carry a legacy of the work born from its disintegration.
The Boulder Creek project was one of four “Gathering of Waters” series, each centered on a different river. “It’s important that people connect with the river and connect with people downstream, to recognize that we are a human river,” Irland said.
She said the international scope of her work is important “because everywhere in the world has its own water problems” – including too much or too little water, poor water quality and waterborne disease.
Irland has been working over the past 10 years on art in which she transfers images relating to waterborne disease to fabric related to treatment or prevention. For example, she transferred a microscopic view of e-coli onto hospital sheets. She said a child dies every eight seconds from water-related diseases, many of which are preventable.
Irland is also developing an art and ecology curriculum. She said many courses on the topic are already offered in a variety of disciplines.
One such class is “Southwest Water,” which Irland taught this semester with students from biology, community and regional planning, and art. “What I enjoy is having students from across campus,” she said. “It makes for a really rich dialogue.”
In the spring, Irland will co-teach ARTS 467/567: “Arts and Ecology” with William Gilbert, professor of art and art history.
Media Contact: Sari Krosinsky, (505) 277-1593; e-mail: michal@unm.edu
Posted by scarr at December 13, 2007 03:15 PM