Margaret Bellafiore |
|
I am an artist using installation and performance for personal expression. Mark making on paper is a constant practice. I use drawing in public places as well. As part of an artist exchange in Zadar, Croatia, I marked a mile long ancient channel in blue chalk with symbols for water.
I have a degree in biology from St.John's University and diploma and Fifth Year Certificate from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
I am presently developing an interactive installation about climate change for the new Mobius space. I plan to use floor drawings and ice. (UPDATE 2008:See GLOBAL below)
|
|
|
|
The piece was a collaborative performance done with video and installation artist Magaly Ponce. Titled "Measures of Distance," the task of knotting and unknotting 400 yards of white tulle explored ideas of separation and union. Video animation of the gesture study of hands was projected onto the tulle and the walls of Boston City Hall. Sound was by composer Damon Holzborn.
Images from the Inbetween Project were photographed by Bob Raymond.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ARTIST STATEMENT for GLOBAL installation:
|
|
|
|
I completed an undergraduate degree in biology before going to art school. The installation, GLOBAL, was an opportunity to have both fields of study intersect. As I carefully poured red sand from a cup, I began to respect the existence of delicate living things even more. I wanted to make the organisms impacted by warming temperatures, with the simplest of gesture. I set up a mind game for myself that I would make no corrections. The audience was confronted with how to negotiate moving around the space. Their decision to walk on the drawings or carefully around them became a metaphor for me. And when the audience disturbed some of them, I would not make repairs.
At the opening reception, there was a three hundred and fifty pound slab of clear ice in the space. The ice slowly melted, puddled and flowed onto many of the images. This natural interaction of water, limestone and sand made its own changes. Ones I could not control. And when the ice was gone, it would not be replaced.
|
|
|
|
Installation shot of Global before the ice arrives!
|
|
|
|
GLOBAL
an installation exploring global warming
January 4 -27, 2008
725 Harrison Avenue
Art Block South End Boston
|
|
Both flounder and cod are sensitive to warming temperatures. Maximum temperature of 54F represents the threshold for a thermally suitable habitat for cod. Water temperatures already exceed a 47F threshold for growth and survival of young cod in the Northeast. Will cod disappear from the waters south of Cape Cod?
|
|
The ice (350#) arrives and immediately begins to melt.
|
|
The sound of the calving of Antarctic glacial ice falling into water was part of the installation and heard at 5 minute intervals. (Almost the same sound the ice slab made when it fell over.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
What are we willing to lose in our environment because of man made global warming?
|
|
What changes are we willing to make now to slow down the forecasts made for 2050?
|
|
How do we prepare for the consequences that are coming even if we do make changes?
|
|
I have been struggling with yet another question, "What is art for?"
I don't have an answer yet although I feel very fortunate to have done this installation.
|
|
I was happy to have representatives from the Union of Concerned Scientists come to Mobius and offer solutions (and there are many!) as well as a large dose of optimism for our future. (ucsusa.org)
|
|
|
