Zoe Strauss: Sea Change

For immediate release:
Dec. 19, 2014

PHOTOGRAPHER ZOE STRAUSS ILLUSTRATES THE DRAMATIC CONSEQUENCES OF CLIMATE CHANGE INSEA CHANGE AT HAVERFORD COLLEGE’S CANTOR FITZGERALD GALLERY

HAVERFORD, Pa.——In the last hundred years global sea level has risen about 17 centimeters, and its rate of growth in the last decade alone is nearly double that of the last century. The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are shrinking at a record rate, losing about 90 and 31 cubic miles of ice respectively each year. And the earth is warming; four of the world’s leading climate research centers agree that the 10 hottest years on record all happened since 1998.

But still many people’s eyes glaze over at the fact and figures, as environmental changes often remain largely imperceptible in our daily lives. A new exhibit at Haverford College’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Zoe Strauss: Sea Change, which runs from Jan. 23 through March 6, aims to change that, shining a light on the dramatic consequences of such transformations.

In Sea Change, celebrated Philadelphia photographer Zoe Strauss traces the landscape of post-climate change America. Via photographs, vinyl prints, and projected images, Strauss treads the extended aftermath of three ecological disasters: 2005’s Hurricane Katrina in the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in Southern Louisiana, and 2012’s Hurricane Sandy in Toms River, N.J., and Staten Island, N.Y. Strauss’ camera captures lush and leveled landscapes, graffiti pleas and words of encouragement, and water as both the destroyer and destroyed. In its 52 images Sea Change tells the stories of lives decimated and dusting off from disasters both natural and man-made, the fast and slow tragedies of global warming, the damage we can repair, and the damage we can’t.

Strauss will give a gallery talk for Sea Change with writer Mattathias Schwartz and Haverford College Assistant Professor of Chemistry Helen K. White on Friday, Jan. 23, from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. A reception for the show’s opening will follow from5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. For more information on the show or Strauss’ concurrent on-campus Mellon Creative Residency, please visit exhibits.haverford.edu/zoestrauss.

Sea Change is made possible with support from Haverford College’s John B. Hurford ’60 Center for the Arts and Humanities and the Mellon Creative Residencies.

Part of the John B. Hurford ’60 Center for the Arts and Humanities and located in Whitehead Campus Center, the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery is open Monday through Friday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., and Wednesdays until 8 p.m. For more information, contact Matthew Seamus Callinan, associate director of the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery and campus exhibitions, at (610) 896-1287 or mcallina@haverford.edu.

Haverford College is located at 370 Lancaster Avenue, Haverford, PA, 19041