Thousands of crocheted sculptures confronts the climate crisis

PICTORIAL

A new report released this week by an Australian agency says that the 1,400-mile Great Barrier Reef has undergone its sixth mass bleaching. About 91 percent of the brightly colored marine ecosystems were affected by this most recent catastrophe, which occurs when water temperatures rise. Disasters like this are becoming more frequent as the climate crisis intensifies, prompting artists like Christine and Margaret Wertheim to respond with striking displays of what could be permanently lost.

The Australia-born, California-based sisters began the Crochet Coral Reef project in 2005 to confront the devastations of bleaching, over–fishing, tourism, and agricultural contaminations through sprawling, labor-intensive environments. More than 40,000 of the oceanic works are now on view at the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden, transforming the gallery into textured ecosystems resting atop pillars and protected in glass cases.

Like the organic beings they emulate, these handmade sculptures take time to make—time that is condensed in the millions of stitches on display; time that is running out for earthly creatures, including humans and cnidarians. Time forms a framework for the Reef project, for as CO2 escalates in our atmosphere time is increasingly in short supply, and what we choose to spend time on is a reflection of our values.

Part of the intention for Crochet Coral Reef is to involve local communities, and so far, almost 20,000 people have contributed their own fiber-based forms, with about 5,000 participating in the show in Baden-Baden alone.

Making delicate cut paper flowers

Paper-cutting artist Maude White continues to astound us with her painstaking illustrations cut from single sheets of paper.

Limited to only negative and positive space, she explores poetic compositions of line and shape as she renders each piece with a knife.

Wooden characters with lanky, curved bodies

Oxford-based artist Tach Pollard allows the sinuous shapes of hawthorn or oak branches to guide the forms of his fantastical figures.

The lanky creatures stand on long limbs with hunched shoulders and bowed backs, features determined by the original curve of the wood.

Based on legends like the Norse Eddas, The Mabinogion, and the Icelandic Sagas, the sculptures are mysterious and minimal—Pollard tends to leave the natural color and grain of the material intact for their faces and burns the remainder to obtain the deep, black char that envelops their figures.