Environmentalism, art collide at SoFa

Pilgrims and a polar bear met visitors’ eyes as they entered the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts Gallery on Friday.

The opening reception for three exhibitions, “INHABIT,” “All Points Bulletin: Interventions on Climate Change” and “Polar Drifts: Projects from Northern Crossings,” drew artists and environmentalists alike to the SoFA Gallery.

All three exhibits focus on the environment in some way, whether through activist art or pieces that explore the environment that the artist works in. The exhibits will be on display until March 12.

In the center gallery stood two people dressed in all white, prancing and posing around the gallery.

They were the Albedo Pilgrims, a concept that originated with the Canary Project, an organization started by Edward Morris and Susannah Sayler to strengthen public understanding of climate change through visual media.

Albedo is a scientific term for the measure of something’s reflectivity. Because white reflects light, the whiter the earth is, the cooler it will be.

Morris said the idea for the Albedo Pilgrims was to emulate other social campaigns originating from the fashion industry, such as the Product(RED) campaign.

Fine arts student Amy Burrell built on this idea by creating three white dresses for people to wear around town and then filming their interactions with each other and the Bloomington environment.

“There’s a certain mythology about the Pilgrims that none of us understand completely,” Morris said. “Amy opened part of it that we didn’t know about.”

Another crowd favorite was a piece titled “Lost Landscape (Ft. Peck)” by University of Illinois professor Stephen Cartwright.

“I think ‘Lost Landscape’ is most effective at drawing people’s attention to a specific aspect of the environment that the artist wants us to consider in a different way,” said David Katz, a graduate student in the School of Fine Arts.

Megan Abajian, public relations director for the SoFA Gallery and co-curator of “INHABIT,” said Cartwright had several topography reference sculptures on display at the INHABIT exhibit, each of which he created by using a GPS to note where he was located every hour and then turning those paths into sculptures.

The third exhibit, “Polar Drifts,” included a live performance focusing on polar bears and the environment of northern Canada, which was the theme of artist and fine arts assistant professor Leslie Sharpe’s “Northern Crossings” project.

Senior William Huster said he thinks the shows are good because they bring in different perspectives, but he doesn’t know how effective the art is in spreading a message about the environment.

“The people coming here, in a way you’re preaching to the choir,” he said.