Art, nature collaborate to advocate global change

William L. Fox wants to know why art, specifically environmental and landscape art, is the way it is in the 21st century.

“Art is collaborating with nature now,” Fox said. “Now, we have art that does not just document nature, but asks us to participate in it.”

Fox gave a lecture titled “Art, the Anthropocene, and Global Change” on Friday at the School of Fine Arts to discuss his research of artistic and environmental projects.

The lecture is the last of its kind to accompany the ongoing SoFA gallery exhibit, the “Canary Project: Works on Climate Change 2006-2009.” The gallery, which addresses the issue of climate change, closes Oct. 9. 

Fox was one of the first people the Canary Project co-founders Edward Morris and Susannah Sayler contacted when they began their work three years ago, and the trio have since worked together.

“The study through artistic movement of climate change is important, and Bill has helped us facilitate that,” Morris said. “We’re thrilled to have him here.”

Fox’s research focuses on what he called three different historical trends – or timelines – that all work together and explain the use of landscape and environment in art in the 21st century. 

The concepts, he said, are sometimes hard to follow, and he asked the audience in Woodburn Hall to tell him if they were following along.

“I want you to tell me if this makes sense,” Fox said. “There are the three stages in the age of the Anthropocene, three different ages of exploration and three artistic technologies.”

Anthropocene is what Fox called a new geological era that started during the industrial revolution and is being researched by scientists to determine its validity. Fox said that during this age, humans have studied, explored and developed the world, and that evidence of this can be seen in art.

“There is a historical imperative as to why we have things like the Canary Project,” Fox said. 

Fox, who studied English at Claremont College, has published both nonfiction books and books of poetry. He is currently the director of the Center for Art and Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art. 

It was later in his career that he began what he called his very unique research.
“It wasn’t until 1993 that I fell into this odd niche,” Fox said. “I looked at a landscape painting by a friend of mine and wanted to know why she did what she did.”

Fox, who said he had never been to Indiana, guest-lectured at the eight-week course taught by Sayler and Morris titled “Engagement/Art/Activism: Response and Intervention on Climate Change.”

Sophomore and studio art major Marine Tempels, who is enrolled in the class, said having guest lecturers like Fox have been key to what she has learned so far.

“We usually only think of art as fine art, but I’m passionate about the environment, and I’m interested in merging the two,” Tempels said.

Fox works with students in various parts of the world to conduct field studies where students create art with the environment that leave no evidence behind, but is documented and presented through exhibitions.

“There are these field studies in the United Kingdom, Australia, Chile,” Fox said. “They bring together so many people and pull students out of their normative environment. A great flowering is going to come of this.”