A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

Featured artists: Rafael Attias (Rhode Island), Mathew Emmett (United Kingdom), Carla Gannis (New York), Anita Glesta (Australia, New York), David Nez (Oregon), Olivier Perriquet (France), Anne Katrine Senstad (Norway, New York), Otavio Schipper (Brazil)  Saša Spačal (Slovenia), Hana Usui (Japan, Austria), and Vargas-Suarez Universal (Kyrgyzstan, New York).

The Jamestown Arts Center is pleased to announce A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall: An Intersection of Art and Science, opening on April 21. This exhibition brings together 11 artists from the far reaches of the world—Slovenia, Japan, Australia, to Norway, Brazil, France and UK—all presenting a common thread: each exploring realms of post-ecological catastrophe survival and degraded climate, using science to create art and art to explain science.

Independent curator, writer and researcher Lara Pan explains, “The exhibiting artists all have varied cultural, artistic, and scientific backgrounds; these interdisciplinary approaches provide an important lens to examine the scientific research on the possibility of mass extinction of our planet’s living organisms. The artists seek to investigate the idea of the complete disappearance of known life forms.”

The intersection between art, science, politics and ecology becomes more and more relevant as we continue to witness the unstoppable change due to global warming, pollution, fracking, mass production, wars, and the destruction of Earth’s vital life sources such as oceans, forests, and animal life. The selected projects collectively recognize the importance of communication and invite the audience to explore topics related to ecological disaster, the loss of known life forms, the progress of AI, issues of global pandemic; and re-examine the possibilities of survival after ecological catastrophe. In this exhibition, the artists demonstrate interdisciplinary approaches to provide a mirror into the innovations made possible by the intersections between art, technology and the Anthropocene.

Offering insight into the impetus of the exhibition, Ms. Pan explains, “The title, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, is taken from the Bob Dylan song of the same name, written sixty years ago and performed at Newport Folk Fest in 1963. Inspired by the old European folk heritage that Dylan was investigating at the time, the song appears on Dylan’s second album Freewheelin’. Thus we cannot deny the political and almost prophetic message of the song that is more than ever applicable today.

“And what did you hear, my darling young one? / I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’ / Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world’”

About the curator: Lara Pan is an independent curator, writer and researcher. Her fields of interest include art, science, technology, sound, architecture, and paranormal phenomena, with a focus on interdisciplinary projects that explore the intersections between these topics.

In conjunction with this exhibition, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, the Jamestown Arts Center is hosting a talk with curator Lara Pan and artists Rafel Attias, Carla Gannis, Anita Glesta, Anne Katrine Senstad, and Vargas-Suarez Universal. In Conversation is scheduled for Saturday, April 22nd at 3pm.

*Image description: The Albatross is a video installation concerned with the transmission of Avian Influenza as a symptom of degraded ecosystems attributed to human behavior. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1798 poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is interpreted as an intermedial interface, highlighting how human consumption and pandemics are interconnected. The work raises awareness of the invasive exploitation of the natural environment, creating pathological virus-lagoons that accelerate pandemic risk.