Kirsten Aaboe

Horizontal and Vertical / Contained and Dispersed

Digital photo mashup
Left: an online image of a ghost ship from a travel ad on Instagram. The photo was originally taken in 1900. Right: cityscape photographed by me in January 2023 from 35k feet up in the midwestern United States

The strong trend toward globalization that has characterized the world economy since the 1970s has had a lot to do with three technological developments: container ships, computerized monitoring of inventories, and global satellite communications. But it also resulted from (1) the relentless pursuit of profits and efficiency, (2) increasing international investment (often facilitated by the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund), (3) the lifting of trade restrictions and protective tariffs, (4) the expansion of trade agreements through the efforts of the World Trade Organization, and (5) the increased financialization of the economy and pressures on corporations to ensure quarterly profits.”

“In this time of over-globalization, one alternative—re-localization—offers substantial benefits. It creates local jobs, increases the diversity of local occupations and skill sets, and thereby increases social capital—the richness of the relationships between people who live within a region. In the next video, #17, we’ll look at how re-localization can contribute to regional economic development and build community resilience.”
©
2023
  • Kirsten Aaboe

Going With the Flow. It’s the name of the game.

digital collage

“….Sustainability helps us understand, in a more general sense, our extremely complex relationship with the natural world, and the consequences of getting that relationship wrong. Where resilience is process-oriented and, in ways, value-neutral, sustainability forces us to confront deep questions and uncomfortable potential futures…”
©
2022
  • Kirsten Aaboe

A reservoir in Southern California

Photograph
2022

Resilience is possible if the supporting and interrelated systems are strong enough to allow adaptation to heal from the damage, shock, or disruption.
©
2022
  • Kirsten Aaboe

Our Future? Together? The Long View

Charcoal and ink on paper

The old people, our elders, animals, plants, and all living things, are in a community, connected, physically and spiritually. Rushing headlong for the precipice, consuming, discarding, never looking at the trail of refuse behind us, won’t be possible much longer, since the circle is being closed. Life is to cherish.
©
2022
  • Kirsten Aaboe

Free Fall at a Cost

digital photo collage

Free Fall is the state I’m in these days, sometimes, though I try to deny it. My neural pathways, geared toward achieving pleasure, escaping pain or suffering, guaranteeing reward are in need of constant reorientation.

Community, shared support, empathy and compassion help me reorient, come back to earth, live in awareness of what I use, and try not to abuse. I remember when chasing the next thing - filling the hole in my psyche with stuff - revealed itself to be the wrong way to get “there,” but riding that wave, buying that house, being applauded, and holding onto the means to keep those things is all so hard to reverse. Quiet helps.
©
2022
  • Kirsten Aaboe

A Tiny Ascension

digital photomontage

What happened to this little bird was completely beyond my control. How I see my role as caretaker of what is in my world requires gentleness, understanding, kinship, and awareness beyond my own immediate desires. How I connect with my world requires the application of the determination to cherish life in all its forms.
©
2021
  • Kirsten Aaboe

We Are Part of the Earth?

Multimedia: photographs photoshopped digitally

Those opposable thumbs, relatively big brains, and hairless vulnerability have produced a voracious predator, wreaking havoc on the intricate, interwoven, exquisitely interlaced web of the natural world, formerly untrammeled by human boots. This blind egoism is unsustainable and will drive itself into the ground - literally. The piece is a visualization of the phasing out of humans, along with only some of the other affected animals. The earth will survive, and will regenerate, since life springs from cracks in the concrete.
©
2021
  • Kirsten Aaboe

Untitled

Manipulated digital photograph

My understanding of my complicity, due to ignorance of the connectedness of my actions and their consequences, as well as my desire for convenience, my laziness, privilege, and self-importance, has grown over time.

I made this piece after wandering in the wonderful surroundings, the wonderfields, of 29 Palms at the Desert Dairy while at an artist residency there. I took many photographs while it was cool in the mornings, and when it was too hot to be outside in the 100+ degree heat, I worked on manipulating the photos. This is a digital photo, existing in my iCloud, and may not be printed – I’m not sure about doing that.

I am convinced, as a great many artists are, that our efforts must be more fervently directed to seeing both upstream (before we take action, especially to consume resources) and downstream (what happens after we do take those actions; what do we discard, leave behind)….seeing but also developing work with this awareness.
©
2021
  • Kirsten Aaboe

Hold Everything

Multimedia digital photo collage

The headlong pursuit I’ve been stuck in, of acquiring, using, and then discarding, in an endless cycle, reinforces my mono-directional thinking and assumptions based on individual rights to the exclusion of how my actions fit into the whole systems we’re all part of. If I ratchet back my actions, take hard looks at my ‘needs’ and ‘desires,’ I find there is exquisite beauty all around me.

Hold Everything is a portrait of a very small moth I found on my studio floor. Cherishing means I won’t destroy as much.
©
2021
  • Kirsten Aaboe

Fading into the Mist? Really?

Oil and carbon ink on pellon
18”x20”

This image depicts a confused-looking man, sitting on an insubstantial cloud, looking backward, flummoxed, and unaware of the precarious position he is in.
©
2020
  • Kirsten Aaboe

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