The Science
Sea Level Rise is one of our most difficult problems to solve today. In this very moment, sea levels are rising, due to large ice sheet melting in the Arctic and Antarctic. We are losing more ice every minute, because of human greenhouse gas release which causes warming of our planet’s atmosphere and oceans. In this heat, the Earth’s poles are vanishing like an ice cube in a glass of water, and as a result, oceans are growing larger and larger. What most people don’t know: oceans are highly dynamic systems causing sea levels, and Sea Level Rise, to be different in each location on Earth. In 2017, politicians around the world signed the Paris Agreement where they decided to allow only 1.5°C warming. In 2022, this boundary has already been crossed. If we continue our current greenhouse gas release, we will instead experience a warming of 5°C by 2100.
With this art installation, we want to allow everyone to experience the future sea level in five different locations: Taipei (Taiwan) 90cm, Jakarta (Indonesia) 85cm, Lagos (Nigeria) 90cm, Glasgow (United Kingdom) 54cm, New York (USA) 103cm. How tall are you? Walk around and imagine! This is the calculated sea level for these locations in the year 2100, if our temperature increases by 5°C. Be aware that some locations such as Jakarta will experience even higher risk of flooding in the future. This is because freshwater is being pumped out of the ground causing the city to sink. As a result, the sea level will be even higher (by an additional 1.8m). To this day, there is no solution on how to deal with the sea level challenge. What would you do if you were the Mayor of one of these cities?
The Artist
La Benida Hui is an art educator with a BFA in illustration from Parsons School of Design in New York. She previously established R.A.R.E. (Rare Animals Really Endangered), an environmental art education and exhibition design studio whose programs have expanded into community art projects with exhibits in New York, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Dr. Sophie Nuber is a Climate Scientist at National Taiwan University focusing on climate change and ecosystems, in particular Coral Reefs. Her curiosity for nature and passion for art and culture have taken her research to multiple continents around the world.
About the Changing Perspectives project
The project Changing Perspectives has been a work in progress for a year from Spring 2021 to Spring 2022 under the greater Power In Numbers series where artist La Benida explores the educational aspect of art using only waste-objects, and playing with size, numbers, colour, and people. For this, Artist La Benida was a curator at the National Museum of Marine Science and Technology in Keelung, Taiwan.
In 2021, the artist put together a large team of volunteers including other museum curators and staff, members from environmental art education workshops she held, students from the nearby college, members of a local dive shop (Blue Dot Mission Fulong), and other environmentally minded participants. As the Lead-Artist, La Benida designed, created and built all panels that appeared in the exhibition. Dr Sophie Nuber joined the project as a scientist in Autumn 2021, to provide scientific insights, execute possible data analyses, and give the resulting panels greater meaning reaching beyond the creation of colourful panels. The volunteers aided La Benida in executing several large-scale beach clean-ups, one of which provided the materials to this project. They further assisted in sorting and cataloguing the pieces of waste collected, and helping us to set up the installation (first at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Keelung, then at the Nature Park in Heping Island), and participated in the pop-up photoshoot (at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Keelung). The project’s main goal is to educate the public on ocean issues, such as waste and climate change impact (i.e. sea level rise). For many volunteers, it is the educational aspect that motivates them to join our team and participate in the exhibition.
Copyright statement. This work is published under the CC BY-NC-SA license