Artist Talk

I have been thinking about the far-reaching arms of the Anthropocene in our human history. With the upcoming announcement by the Anthropocene World Group in 2023, the notion of when and how the Anthropocene began is interesting to me. In this talk, I connect our biophilic response to the natural world to the implications of naming the Anthropocene. I also dive into our emotional response to the changes we see happening. This topic keeps deepening as I continue to dig into history, ecology, and culture. This video represents my research and thoughts at the time.

Presented at the Center of Visual Art in Denver, CO, in 2023. Special thanks to Cecily Cullin, Natascha Seidenek, and Katie Taft.

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Dear Future: A Talk with Regan Rosburg

New Review of Human/Nature (on view in Chicago through 2023)

I am happy to share this comprehensive review of the Human/Nature exhibition, which has now found a home at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. My work, monument, is on display, as is my film, dear future. The atrium is full of breathtaking, thoughtprovoking works by Matthew Ritchie, Laura Ball, OBVIOUS, and Karen Reimer. The show runs through 2023 (programming TBD).

In her review of the exhibition, writer Aaron Rose succinctly and poetically pulls together the vision of all involved, placing the show within the context of each artist’s work, as well as the extensive global challenges we collectively face.

Many thanks to the curator (Cyndi Conn), the team at the Weinberg Newton Gallery, the board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Harris School of Public Policy, and the artists.

read additional reviews of this exhibition:

• BBC Culture

• Chicago New Art Examiner

Human/Nature Exhibition Moves to the University of Chicago in May 2022

From January through April of 2022, I participated in a group exhibition on climate change called Human/Nature, curated by Cyndi Conn, at the Weinberg-Newton Gallery. The gallery partnered with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and included artists such as Laura Ball, Matthew Ritchie, Donovan Quintenero, Karen Reimer, Obvious (French collective), and Staz Bartnikas.

The show provided programming that engaged the public, including a panel discussion, video recordings from scientists, gallery talks, presentations, and interactive artworks.

Rosburg, Regan. Monument. Moss, recycled and virgin plastic, orchids, petrichor (rain smell), diffuser. 15 x 15 x 10 feet. 2022. Photo credit: Evan P. Jenkins for Weinberg-Newton Gallery.

I had three pieces in the exhibition: Monument, dear future, and Everything is Fine. These three works engaged the viewer in different ways, from immersing the viewer in the comforting smell of rain, to the solemn reading of letters, to the writing of letters in exchange for a small bottle of moss and rain smell. My work aimed to tap into a reverence for the resilience and deep time on our planet, as well as to provide a place for contemplation of the emotions that surround our response to climate change.

I am happy to announce that this exhibition will move to the Harris School at the University of Chicago in May of 2022. It will be up for one year. I will update with more information as it comes, but I wanted to express my gratitude to Cyndi Conn for continuing the message of this exhibition so that others might experience it.

Notes from the Runway

Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Day 25

Regan Rosburg – Artist in Residence

I am standing at the table, looking down at my painting, when I heard the call of birds outside. My studio has a garage door that is completely open, and I sacrifice the chill of the late October air to hear the birds and see the view. Outside the open wall is a mile-long horizontal strip of runway, and beyond that is the slowly changing sculpture of deciduous trees in Virginia. I say sculpture because it exists as a marvelous, everchanging work of art that I have watched over the past month. As the cold comes and the days become shorter, each tree gathers her skyward skirts of colorful leaves, sucking in her sugars as if she is taking a deep breath. Golden yellows, rusty oranges, and sienna reds are all that is left of an entire summer of work. Each leaf has been tickled hundreds of times by insects and wind, and now gives way to one final gust of Fall air.

Downward it gracefully spirals, blowing kisses to its friends as they spin past. This is an ancient, glorious rite of passage.

As the leaves form a patchwork blanket of color below, the tree sinks her breath still deeper, storing her energy in the depths of the soil. None but mycelium, worms, beetles and moles will have the gracious fortune to curl up among her roots, where she safely keeps the promise of next Spring’s awakening in her net of underground darkness.

It is easy to think of trees and plants using only a frightfully dull and dangerous post-colonial mind. This mind appraises the tree as simply a donor of wood, paper, berries and fruit. One might think of them as convenient suppliers of shade, as ways to increase property value, and as the backdrop to our otherwise busy lives. One might think of trees as a source of heat and energy -- as logs in a fire, or as burnable biomass fuel that ensures our living room lights will come on. Although some of us are instinctively comforted by it, to other people the abstractness of the “natural world” morphs into a kind of stage set, and then carry on without noticing its true brilliance and intelligence.

As I stand at the table, I ponder each tree, as well as the group as a whole.

Each tree is a planet, a body, and a cell. Taken individually, each is a complex, living organism capable of learning. In the DNA of each tree are 3.8 billion years spent sipping on starlight. The starlight is converted into sugary starches, which then materialize in the plant’s structure (wood, roots, and leaves) or in the reproductive process (flowers, pollen, and potentially fruits). Taken as a whole, trees in a forest need each other. Studies have shown that when one tree gets ill or falls down, the rest of the forest will suffer. Though they compete for light, they are healthier together than they are alone, and thus a diverse forest is a thriving one. They live as families, maintaining millions of organisms upon their branches, between their layers of bark, within their thick carpet of fallen leaves, and in their roots spreading out beneath the ground.

The entire phenomenon of a tree is on a timeline that humans cannot comprehend. It requires the kind of patience and resilience that has been drained dry in a society focused on deadlines, return on investment, and exponential growth. The resilience of a tree means fortitude and hope as they weather storms and insects, witness neighboring trees being sawed into paper or are set on fire to make room for cattle. The resilience of a tree means to make it through a dry Summer, an especially cold Winter, and a drenching Spring. The resilience of a tree means to shade all of God’s creatures, even the ones who attack it with tiny teeth, beaks, and chainsaws.

Yet -- of all of the gifts given by these gorgeous, intelligent creatures, perhaps the most poetic of all is that which is invisible. Although we cannot hear it nor feel the minute trembling wind that must course past our fragile eyelashes at any given moment, trees are exhaling the oxygen we need to survive.

If one takes an even wider view, one can extend this appreciation further to all plants and animals on Earth. For most of the world’s population, our bodies are warm because we wear their hides and eat their flesh. Most of us live in their habitats yet treat their presence as a backdrop. Most of us survive on their milk, their oils, their fibers, their bones.

I think of this as I stand over my painting, looking at branches I have painted in black. I think of the birds that I hear in the trees, happily chattering to themselves FOR themselves, not for me.

So often I am on the verge of tears because of the piercing red light of sunrise, or a moment when a bird flew by and my subconscious recorded its wing beat… it goes on and on, thumping in my head, that gorgeous sound on repeat.

So often I see spiders struggle helplessly to get out of the kitchen sink and I think “if not for man, what branch would you be climbing on?”

So often I see tree branches and wonder what the feeling of a bird wrapping its claw around it must feel like.

I bet it is exhilarating.

Oak Spring Garden Foundation tree, during my 2019 Residency.

the sublime gutting

This post is my cheesy attempt to capture what it was like to go the Arctic with high hopes of fabulous artworks…and to be utterly emotionally disemboweled by the beauty of an epic landscape.

700 miles from the top of the world, our ship got stuck in the ice… and it was amazing.

ARCTIC CIRCLE RESIDENCY - SVALBARD, NORWAY

In June of 2019, I was one of thirty-two international artists, scientists and journalists aboard the tall-ship Antigua. My proposed project for the two-week journey in and around Svalbard was in two parts.

First, I wanted to document the bloom of a particular kind of algae called Emiliania Huxleyi (a coccolithophore found all around the world). This algae was of interest to me because of its role in cloud formation, carbon capture, and the release of the gas Dimethyl Sulfide — a gas which has been shown to be an olfactory indicator for many marine animals. EHux is an important part of the arctic food cycle. When EHux blooms happen, they are fed upon by phytoplankton, and then fish, and then bigger fish, and then birds, whales and more. Therefore, some species have evolved to seek the smell of DMS because they know there will be food available. Often, birds can pick up on molecules in the parts per trillion.

Before I left for the Arctic, I discussed with a few scientists (NOAA, NCAR, Bigelow Labs) the role that DMS gas might be contributing to marine life eating plastic. DMS is not only emitted from EHux. Anything floating in the water will become coated in a “biofilm” and can contain the enticing smell of DMS gas. Basically, if it smells like food and looks like food, it is more plausible to be eaten by ocean life. There is still research being done on this topic.

My second project was to document and collect plastics that had traveled north via the thermohaline current. Because my work often uses plastic as a symbol for humanity’s “mania,” to find it in remote regions is a symbolic representation of how far our consumption sickness has spread.

I went to the arctic in a certain state of mind. As the world struggles to deal with pollution, climate change, and increasing aggression in many ways, I had become somewhat dark in my outlook and practice, and unbeknownst to me, I was quite comfortable there.

Thankfully, the arctic changed me.

It is not that I have lost the heavy weight of sensitivity that allows me to see damage to the planet around every corner. It is not that I have lost my drive and ambition to be a helpful force for change, and using my work as a tool. It is not that I did not mourn melting glaciers, that I did not become angry, that I did not cry. I did all of those things.

Ancient ice = ancient gases = ancient organisms that exhaled those ancient gases = ancient life that made the organisms that exhaled those ancient gases = amazing planet of which I am a part.

What changed is that the Arctic made me slow down.

It made me sit quietly, it demanded to be observed, it asked to be heard. The groans and cracks of aging ice were not seen on a screen, they were terrifyingly close. The snapping bubbles of escaping ancient gas were a cacophony of voices from another time, very much alive. The crushed piles of moraine made clear a power of nature that could care less about silly human squabbles, ignorant leaders, bottom lines, or even the notion of conquest. I saw Arctic foxes, terns that traveled thousands of miles, resilient plants of humble beauty, gentle young reindeer, whales, walruses and polar bears. I sat and watched the light change for hours on the surface of the water. I watched how the clouds formed, thickened, thinned, and disappeared. I studied the reflections on the water. I watched live drone footage of brilliant white sea worms, anemones, and seaweed on the bottom of a fjord. I stayed in the cold when my body was frozen. I hiked until I was exhausted. I slept little. I missed the night sky and learned to appreciate stars. I questioned my beliefs. I was rendered insignificant in the most peaceful and precious way. I fell in love with the planet more deeply, the way one does as they get to know someone more fully.

No, I never saw the blooms…and yes, I did find plastic. But in the end, my projects only got me onto the ship. The real project was learning how to be quiet, blessed, present, and full of wonder — in essence, remembering the true nature that lies in each of us.

I hope that this series of photos capture the absolute ego-crushing, soul-reckoning, spectacular beauty that is our Arctic.

-Regan Rosburg

A Giggle from the Basement

Slightly angry, exasperated, scared, protective, and reverent response poems from the Arctic residency. Broken into three acts of outward judgment and reluctant self-incrimination. June 2019.

*1*

every world leader,

every CEO,

every drunk sorority girl,

every shopper who looks forward to Black Friday,

every person who has spent an entire day binge watching television,

every person who has lost hours in Instagram,

every person who takes their comfort for granted,

who has ordered a to-go coffee,

who has ever had a drink of clean water,

who has tossed anything into the trash …

every last one of us should have to kneel before these giants.

every shopping mall should to crumble to dust.

every football game,

every bar,

every restaurant,

every movie theater,

every amusement park,

every cruise ship,

every night club

all of them should disappear.

       should disintegrate.

                    should become something else.

                    should become a new kind of church.

a church of water.

a church where Time is the minister –

and the slow procession of heat

guides the giants down the valley isle.

a church where instead of bells

we would have to hear the light tinkling

of gas bubbles popping in the ice,

or the swirling mix of voices

from the Arctic Terns who arrive for the summer.

a church where rows

and rows

of pews

would stretch for miles,

all facing these incredible behemoths of time.

a church where we

homo sapiens

“wise ones”

would know our place.

a place that is small

insignificant...

precious.

and we

would sit quietly,

reverently…

waiting for nothing.

wanting for nothing.

just watching the slow icy sermon before us

awareness that only comes

from the lack of wanting

and the gain

of truly seeing.

*2*  

here

you must have a different kind of compass

because a different kind of navigation is needed.

it cannot be held in the hand, swiped left to right, locking onto some unseen satellite.

words will fail you.

descriptions of the beauty and vastness sound like bumbling nonsense

uttered by a child who has yet learned to speak.

scale is futile

because the magnificence of towering ice leviathans cannot be quantified.

the enormity of Their bodies somehow surpass the very land They slowly crush,

skidding to an unstoppable end in the sea.

direction cannot be found from humble human instruments,

and to attempt to navigate the Arctic in this way is

antiquated

and

desperate.

orientation, if it comes at all,

wells up suddenly from deep inside the caverns of your heart,  

trapped in bubbles of a breath you did not know you were holding,

tightly pressed into a history of which you did not know you were a part.

and

the history is

shining cerulean blue,

revealed slowly…

backlit from an ancient

and ever-present sun.

these churches of water are the steadied hands of God

gently rested on cold, dark soil;

with eyes closed and palms down,

They slowly feel the texture of the earth as They move past…

reading the collective story like braille…

urgently committing the story to memory

for once They reach the sea,

Their bodies give way –

and the memories

are forgotten.

*3*  

I do not blame Them for wanting revenge.

out beyond the distance of this icy heaven

is a world that is winding to a feverous pitch.

the orgiastic, sultry writhing of humanity’s consumption

has left its

sweaty

stains

on everything it touches.

in slow rotation, bright lights are kept on as darkness falls.

colors bleed into one another, and because of one another.

our purpose is to forget,

to feel less than,

to desire more.

our unvocalized and agreed-upon pursuit

is to constantly empty ourselves,

and yet loathe the emptiness.

attention does not exist.

it is constantly severed into pieces

by alerts,

desires,

shiny bright packaging

and carefully worded promises.

if there is a slight pause

that could be pregnant with a noble purpose,

it is quickly aborted

and swept away

in a rogue wave of distraction.

Mania.

if there is a memory of one’s ancestry

– the Earthian birthright that holds one’s place in a cacophony of evolved co-existence –

it is sutured shut

quickly

by the sticky paste of consumer culture.

do not allow the void to be there;

the next moment holds a solution,

wrapped in plastic for your protection.

borderless water hides the influence of madness that lurks in towering cities of mania.

the noise is deafening.

they are growls of hunger that cannot

– and will not –

be satiated.

as plastics drift to the basement of the coldest water world,

so too the Giants slide into the water beside them.

 and as They slowly sink,

Their collective bodies will rise,

drowning the world

in

glorious

unfrozen

yet unchosen

retribution.

Hornsund. Svalbard, Norway. Arctic Circle Residency, 2019.