Living in the Anthropocene

Living in the Anthropocene Era

The imagery in the Watermark installation derives from an ongoing study of Elmira, N.Y.’s Lackawanna Rail Trail, my inexhaustible neighborhood source for artistic inspiration. A year of my life unfolded in 2016-17 as I rode my bicycle on this trail, capturing the seasonal change in a series of Instagram photo grids and video.

In the spring of 2018 I turned to abstraction as a way to further investigate the passage of time in the era where human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment (the Anthropocene Age). After digitally scanning a watercolor sketch I had painted of an open grassy field along the rail trail, I playfully modified colors. These spin-offs of the original watercolor created an eerily morphing, imaginary world of abstraction, prompting me to consider the problematic effects of humankind’s activities on our natural world.

The Lowman Crossover extension opened late in the fall of 2017, creating nearly nine miles of new, ever-changing shapes, colors, textures, sounds, and movement for capture, mostly with my iPhone. Experimenting with the moving image, I created videos that not only reflect on the abstract beauty and mystery of the rail trail, but also sound an alarm to our changing climate, most notably in the repeated flooding along the banks of the Chemung River. The Watermark installation is not only evidence of my enduring fascination with the surreal, small town America I have found in my own backyard, but also an expression of my sincere concern for its precarious future.

Jan Kather

November 2018 - January 2019