Spectral Seas

Arts and the Anthropocene was a year-long interdisciplinary teaching project at Duke University that explored how visual, theatrical, and sonic arts can play a role in educating various publics, provoking action, and prefiguring resilient futures in the era of the Anthropocene. The team was composed of faculty, graduate students, undergraduates, and artists. We first explored how scientists, artists, and activists of all stripes have sought to address social and ecological crises and entanglements, working with lawyers, environmental experts, sound recording professionals, activists and various artists such as playwrights, photojournalists, composers, filmmakers, and puppeteers. We then curated and constructed an art intervention aimed at illuminating manifestations of the Anthropocene in the context of North Carolina Waters. We created a 6 foot by 11-foot tapestry, fashioned from recycled plastic bags, that depicts the scale of future sea-level rise on the North Carolina coast. Each color in a tapestry represents a different NOAA sea level rise prediction for 2100. The tapestry is the canvas for a video projection of an animation sequence with a soundtrack composed of field recordings made along the North Carolina coast. The installation is complemented by student created ArcGIS StoryMaps that document our research, and art installation.

Duke Scholars