The Work of Wind: Air, Land, Sea
Presented by Blackwood Gallery
Eduardo Navarro, Pejvak (Felix Kalmenson and Rouzbeh Akhbari), Museo Aero Solar, Xiaojing Yan, Lisa Myers, Paul Walde, Dylan A.T. Miner, Ed Pien, Tania Willard, Gediminas & Nomeda Urbonas, Indrė Umbrasaitė, Nicole L’Huillier, Julian Oliver, Jana Winderen, and Christina Battle.
Curated by Christine Shaw
Southdown Industrial Area
Toronto, Canada
September 14-23, 2018
LINK
Review: CBC
The Work of Wind: Air, Land, Sea is a site-specific exhibition, public program series, and publication platform designed to expand perspectives on climate change through artistic practices, cultural inquiry, and political mobilization. To do so, the project appropriates the Beaufort Scale of Wind Force as an organizing device.
Observatory for Riparian Repose: In Reaching, the Sun Collapsed into the Sea
The Observatory for Riparian Repose is a story told in wind and water. Inspired by ancient bâdgir (wind catcher) designs of Iran, this immersive sculpture funnels ambient breeze into a strong directional wind that encounters a pool of liquid beneath the structure. Originally, bâdgirs served as passive cooling systems in hot desert climates, directing atmospheric winds into subterranean cisterns en route to domestic interiors. Observatory for Riparian Repose adapts the form of the bâdgir, detached from its intended function, with the aim of creating an environment for contemplating the enmeshing of elements. Through sculptural and textual additions, a story implicates this bâdgir within a broader narrative that ties together histories of extraction, collective madness, tellurian toxification, and the invention of solar time.
