PCM presents exhibits on climate change

Monday, September 30, 2019
Ice cores from the “Bearing Witness: 88 Cores” exhibit.
Courtesy photo

Showing at the Putnam County Museum from Oct. 1-31, “Bearing Witness: 88 Cores” and “Paradise and Its Dark Side” is a visual art exhibition of place and time in which the global and the local connect.

Ice cores drilled out of the Greenland ice sheet reveal previously inaccessible, scientifically reliable data. Ancient winds, infused with pollen, pollutants, ash, organic and inorganic particulates, carried debris from flowers and fires, foundries and volcanic eruptions, mixing with seasonal snowfall which compressed into banded layers of ice. These bands can be counted and dated like tree rings.

Ice cores are known as paleothermometers. Air bubbles trapped within the ice hold ancient air including CO2 and methane, providing an accounting of ancient atmosphere. They can indicate climate change for what they say about ancient atmospheric conditions going back hundreds to tens of thousands of years.

L.A. artist Peggy Weil’s video installation “88 Cores” documents 110,000 years of climate history as it descends slowly through the Greenland ice sheet. It is part of a series of Weil’s “Underscapes” and extended landscape portraiture to confront the deep time and deep space of climate change.

“Paradise and Its Dark Side” is artwork by contemporary area artists who reveal the local, glacier-carved landscape as we know it and live it here in Putnam County. Participating area artists are Clare Backer, Jerry Bates, John Berry, Garret L. Boone, David Herrold, Robert Kingsley, William Meehan, George Jo Mess, Lori Miles, Martha Donovan Opdahl, Barbara Timm and Reid Winsey.

“Bearing Witness: 88 Cores” was curated by Martha Donovan Opdahl, and is presented by the Putnam County Museum in partnership with the Richard E. Peeler Art Center at DePauw University.

A reception commemorating the exhibition will be held at the museum on Sunday, Oct. 6 from 3-5 p.m., with a gallery talk at 3:30 p.m.

The Putnam County Museum is open Tuesday through Friday from 1-4 p.m., and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays.

The museum may be reached at 653-8419, or visit its website at www.putnamcountymuseum.org for more information.

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  • Ice cores as interpreted by artists...Really?

    No chance of misinterpretation there.

    Ice cores can't tell us the climate at any given time, too many variables: microbes changing the composition of the sample, water migration through the layers, gas migration through multiple layers and ultimately expelling them at deeper levels.

    Not reliable.

    -- Posted by direstraits on Tue, Oct 1, 2019, at 9:18 AM
  • *

    Direstraits - you stop that, right now! (finger-wagging)

    You know as well as I (and most normal people) that its not about facts.

    Its all about "the feels". How does the narrative (nevermind its wrong) make you feel? Are you scared? (Should be.) Are you angry at do-nothing politicians? (Should be.) Do you feel there should be MORE government to "fix the problem"? (Of course.)

    The only thing that would make this exhibit even more complete would be if there a string of pearls to clutch and a fainting couch to catch yourself on while immersing yourself in the art of science (fiction).

    -- Posted by dreadpirateroberts on Tue, Oct 1, 2019, at 10:06 AM
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