Sentinels of the Shore | Reconciling Art & Science
Excerpt from Dr Anne Hellegouarc’h-Bryce’s 2024 paper:
Sentinels of the shore. Reconciling art and science
“Science in an artistic guise: today different disciplines have much to gain from feeding from one another: combining different perceptions and means of expression, apprehending the world through multiple prisms, enables us to better apprehend what is threatening it. This paper explores the context that gave rise to such ‘science-infused’ artistic initiatives…”
Dr Anne Hellegouarc’h-Bryce is a senior lecturer in British Civilisation at the University of Western Brittany specialising in the issues linked to image and cultural identity.
Horizon Rising 2020
Excerpt:
The issue of rising sea levels is the focus of recent work by Edinburgh-born visual artist David Cass. His work … was displayed at the water’s edge in Lochmaddy … with [this] concern in mind: to make the rise visible, hence real, for people. Cass has long been concerned about the impact of climate change and this is reflected in the form and themes of his work – in particular his consistent focus on the sea as the main subject of his work. Through his choice of found and salvaged materials and objects to paint on, he expresses his concern for sustainability, but also perhaps comments on the pervasive material legacy of the Anthropocene.
Where Once the Waters: 365 Days (Series II) 2022
David Cass’s work is very much about watching, in the very real sense of keeping a watch over the tideline, the rising sea and horizon lines, as a long-term artistic monitoring process to alert and warn us. In Where Once the Waters (365 days), fittingly exhibited at the 2022 Venice Biennale, Cass took on the role of a committed and patient sentinel. By displaying together 365 painted seascapes, he did not simply record the infinitely varying hues of sea and sky but symbolically documented a year of daily changes in the sea level, thereby inviting the viewer to ponder the causes and consequences of the phenomenon and its ultimate effect on the coasts and communities living along them.
Another work dealt just as explicitly with the consequences we must now prepare for: displayed at Taigh Chearsabhagh in Lochmaddy in Uist, Horizon Rising can be described as virtually immersive: the viewers surrounded physically (outside) as well as symbolically (on the gallery walls) by the sea were made more aware of the threat its inexorable reclaiming of the coastline represents, not least for the local communities.
Rising Horizon 2019
Cass’s work is an example of cross-pollination: it is both informed by science and aimed at making scientific findings more understandable by mediating between scientists and viewers (although a disclaimer warns the viewer that the work should not be taken as providing scientific guidance). At the opening of the Rising Horizon show in Edinburgh in January 2019, after the artist introduced his work and mentioned sea-rise as the “serious concept behind it”, an allocution was made by Dr Dave Reay, Professor in Carbon Management. It is not so common to have a scientist talk at the opening of an art show, and Dr Reay’s very enthusiastic response to the artwork seems to confirm the new synergy at work, with art and science working towards a common goal instead of looking in opposite directions. According to the carbon specialist, the public’s positive reception of David Cass’s work did not simply reflect an aesthetic and emotional response but an appreciation of its sustainability. That Cass’s work and approach have resonance in the scientific field seems further confirmed by the artist’s involvement in the Climate Change Creative at the COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, and by his work (in film) being screened as part of the curated program Art Speaks Out at the following year’s COP27 UN conference on climate change held at Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt.
“David Cass is one among a growing number of artists who act as sentinels for our shores...”