Colombia
High Tide
2016
Fiber glass rods, dichroic plexiglass
609 x 915 x 183cm
Carolina Aragón was born in Cali, Colombia and is a public artist who creates lightweight, ephemeral installations that come to life in response to environmental stimuli, such as wind and light.
Her artwork is inspired by natural and environmental phenomena. Clouds, marshes, and flocks of birds are reinterpreted to create dynamic, often hand-made, compositions that are overlaid unto urban environments to create unexpected moments of wonder. High Tide is an abstracted marsh landscape. Using translucent disks placed at varying levels, Aragon marks the various water levels of past and predicted floods, bringing attention to the shifting boundary between land and water. On her work Aragon states:
I think of my artwork as an emerging form of art for adaptation. I define art for adaptation as artwork that provides public access to positive aesthetic experiences, innovative technologies, and information supportive of climate change adaptation.
In particular, my work focuses on creating site-specific visualizations of climate-change induced futures through landscape installations that seek to increase public engagement through pleasurable aesthetic experiences. In particular, my installations visualize future flooding risks associated with sea level rise, depicting future flooding scenarios in a nonthreatening way… Although simple in their construction, they achieve the complexity of an organization of organisms as each piece individually responds to environmental conditions.
As an Assistant Professor in the Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Carolina’s research and creative work focus on public art as a medium to experiment with innovative materials, transform urban landscapes, and engage communities. Her current work involves the incorporation of smart materials for public art applications and the development of public artwork to increase engagement with climate change adaptation.
*all photographs by Matt Conti.
Select Previous Exhibitions
- FutureWATERS | AGUASfuturas, East Boston Greenway, Boston, MA, 2018
- Photoluminescent Labyrinth, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, 2016
Education
Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA
