“Eco-Expression” kicks off green week at Northeastern U

When Carol Rosskam, Northeastern University Sustainability manager, started organizing  Sustainability Week, she knew she wanted to include art.  She didn’t realize that she would have  world-renown international artists showing next to local artists, NEU alumni and staff.

In the exhibition, “Eco-Expression: Art for Sustainability” artists include graffiti artists Banksy and Shepard Fairey, internationally known artists such as Harri Kallio and Mary Van der Park along with nationally known artists such as Jenny Kendler and Molly Schaffer (creators of the Endangered Species Print Project.  For the project, they create and sell limited edition prints depicting endangered species in the number of copies equal to the number of specimens thought to be alive.).

Rosskam contacted Holland Dieringer, Curator of the Rubin-Frankel Gallery at Boston University’s Hillel House, only three months earlier.  Dieringer had curated an exhibition with a Sustainability theme last March in which Kalman Gacs, an aspiring curator, was a juror.  Dieringer connected the two, and according to Gacs, “it was the perfect opportunity for me.”  He had curated smaller exhibitions on environmental themes at  Massachusetts College of Art, Wellesley College and the Needham Public Library and was looking for a larger venue to showcase environmentally themed art.  He had recently closed a small gallery in Needham that he had founded called “True Gallery,” so he had time to work on a special project.

After an extensive call for art,  the pool of talent featured almost fifty artists.   Between these fifty artists, “Eco-Expression” appears in a large range of styles.   Gacs says he wanted to give a  “survey of the wide range of artistic expression related to environmental degradation.”  More than half of the show could be called “surrealistic.”  In it, are scenes of a flooded London, a contribution of Squint Opera studios, a London-based 3D design firm.   The apocalyptic scenes are at the same time strangely idyllic, reminiscent of Norman Rockwell paintings.    Similarly beautiful are images of Dodo birds seemingly in their natural environment from Harri Kallio.    At first, the photographs look like regular nature photographs, only when we consider the fact that Dodos were extinct before color photography, do we understand that the images may be coming as a warning.   Also notable is a series of posters from  an international poster competition called Good50x70; these are clever and direct calls to action on climate change.   Katherine Haskell’s abstracted animals that seem to meld in and out of the canvas also should not be missed.

The exhibition is unusual in that most of the art was digitally submitted by the artists and  printed.  Most of the printing was done by Rick Colson of EcoVisual Communications, a print company based in Wayland, MA that prides itself in creating graphics with the most sustainable methods available today. The exhibition coincides with an international day of action on climate change coordinated by 350.org on October 24th.

Free and Open to the Public

Curry Student Center
360 Huntington Ave, Boston
exhibition runs through October 28,
(a small selection of the art will be exhibited through November 29)
Reception October 22, 3-6 pm

For more info, call Kalman Gacs 617 642 7740
For more info,  and to preview the art
Go to  http://www.climatechangeartists.org