Art Explores Global Warming During Holoscenes at The Ringling

“Art can make people feel climate change in their gut, rather than just understand it.”  -Lars Jan, Creator of Holoscenes

Explore global warming and rising waters through “Holoscenes” – the public art and performance project that will be presented on The Ringling’s Bolger Campiello on Sarasota Bay on March 25-28, 2015.

Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, conceptual artist Lars Jan has been “riveted by media images of comparatively frail human figures at the mercy of surging waters, their bodies and movements transformed by this life-giving element momentarily turned against them.”

In 2012, when the rising waters of Hurricane Sandy reached his Brooklyn apartment, Jan began the research that would lead to the creation of “Holoscenes.” The challenge for Jan was to determine how the complex, topic of climate change could be communicated in an impactful and lasting way. He met that challenge with a mesmerizing work of movement/installation art that elicits an immediate response.

Jan said about his project,

Inside a massive aquarium, a single performer simulates an everyday behavior that collaborators around the world have submitted by video — such as making ramen in Japan or fixing a fishing net in Rwanda.  Driven by streams of environmental data, water surges in and out at varying speeds, deluging the performers while they adapt their behaviors to this cycle of endless mini-floods — a collision of the patterns both making up our lives and transforming our biosphere.

The Ringling’s affiliation with Lars Jan began in 2012 with a conversation about predictions of climate change and rising waters that place the first floor of the magnificent Ca’d’Zan below sea level before the end of this century. Given the potency of presenting this powerful work in that context, The Ringling stepped forward to co-commission Holoscenes for a site-specific installation/performance on Sarasota’s rising bayfront.

Performance Schedule

March 25 – 28, 2015
Wednesday: 12:00pm – 5:00pm
Thursday: 12:00pm – 8:00pm
Friday/Saturday: 12:00pm – 5:00pm

Performances are non-ticketed and open to the public.

Video Performance