What will Vancouver look like in 60 years?
If it's anything like what Sanaz Mazinani imagines, expect to see even more water and glaciers - albeit of the floating variety - than already exist in the area.
The Toronto-based artist is responsible for creating the "speculative garden" that comprises All that Melts: notes from the future-past, the latest installation at the Vancouver Art Gallery’s public art space, Offsite. The installation opens to the public tomorrow, July 25.
Mazinani's work envisions what Vancouver will look like in the year 2080, in which she anticipates global temperatures will have melted glaciers around the world, causing ocean levels to rise dramatically and forcing coastal cities like Vancouver to adapt accordingly. In this "dystopic future," significantly longer, drier and hotter summers mean the Lower Mainland would see certain species of flora thriving, while others would suffer.
These environmental conditions provide the framework behind All that Melts, "a work that reflects on the past, present and future consequences of climate change in Vancouver," the gallery explained in a release.
To that end, Mazinani is transforming the downtown Vancouver public art space "into a crucial piece of environmental infrastructure."
Installation sketch, All that Melts: notes from the future-past. Image courtesy of Sanaz Mazinani Vancouverites dropping by the space will first notice its perimeter wrapped with "digitally manipulated images of glacier forms that are in contrast to native flora of the region," while five sculptures scattered throughout a reflective pond represent glaciers, or rather "preserved cultural artifacts drifting in their own meltwater," through this futuristic lens.
The multi-media installation also features numerous small garden plots surrounding water catchments, one aspect that was created in collaboration with Hives for Humanity, a Downtown Eastside-based non-profit organization committed to education and skill training towards a greater understanding of nature and bee culture.
The plants found within the installation were carefully chosen by their "inability to survive in the fragile conditions of Vancouver’s forecast climate in 2080," according to the release, "thereby recognizing a sense of loss."
Mazinani's creation speculates "about how things could be," the gallery writes, calling the installation "one vision of a future history; a mythological space inhabited by the consequences of its recent past, a story of the earth as told by the culture that produced it."
Its goal? To prompt viewers to reflect "on our troubled present," all in an effort to hopefully elicit a different, more desirable future than the one the globe is currently on track to see.
All that Melts: notes from the future-past will remain open to the public until Feb. 15, 2021. Offsite is located at 1100 West Georgia Street, between Thurlow and Bute.
The public art space is organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery on behalf of the City’s public art program. Sanaz Mazinani's work marks Offsite's 20th installation.
