Incompatible Elements

If the earth beneath of our feet could speak…’Incompatible Elements,’ a project by Australian artists Josephine Starrs and Leon Cmielewski, re-presents the relationship between nature and culture by reconfiguring land as active rather than neutral, verbal rather than mute, and therefore able to comment directly on the impacts of climate change. Building on the long tradition of artists combining text and image to communicate ideas and concepts, poetic texts are digitally embedded into satellite images of landscapes in crisis. In each digital print and video these texts reveal themselves dynamically, growing out of the landscape in different ways – the text design and method reveal the reflecting qualities of the landscape. ‘Tipping Point’ responds to the issues of climate change in ways that are mythical, biblical and chemical. The video illustrates the Boiling Frog story that has been used by environmentalists to describe the physical state of humanity in relation to ignoring the early effects of global warming. ‘Maldives Match-Up’ is a participatory mapping project that invites visitors to map their own city block onto an existing Maldive island, offering displaced Maldivians an opportunity to relocate.