Quin de la Mer

Responding to WNFE art calls is the foundation for my activist art on climate change and the 6th mass extinction of species. Through the years, this project has become an essential voice for what is happening to our world and why, and notably, what we might yet change and how that might happen. Engaging in this venture focuses my attention on specific concepts that together make an incredible visual narrative.

Distillations of Human History, Liverpool Oil Spill (detail)

Oil on canvas, waste stream pigment (dried petroleum from an oil spill) foraged on Crosby Beach in Merseyside, England, 

2022

We cannot meet Essential Community Needs if we continue the destructive path we have built.

STOP WAR
STOP OIL
STOP UNSUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE
STOP...
STOP...

There’s no way around it. There’s no easy path. There’s no comfortable solution.

Post Carbon Institute and Richard Heinberg note that if any essential needs (food, water, energy, money systems) malfunction, a community rapidly loses its ability to operate effectively.

We must stop killing our global ecosystem, Earth.

In my opinion, our consistent choices and the actions that follow indicate we are aiming for collective self-murder, and we intend to take life on Earth with us.

These are dark times, and we are very good at pretending otherwise.
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2023
  • Quin de la Mer

I Love You Earth

Cyanotype on paper
Wildflower petals, Umbria Italy, fresh water stream, spring sunlight, light breeze, digital art, sound art
2023

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When I collaborate with the natural world using cyanotype art-making methods, I always think how great it would be for young people to have this experience. It’s easy to prepare the paper or fabric ahead of time to bring with you into the wild places. Collaborating with the elements to bring a work of art into being is a wonderful way to intimately bond with the more-than-human residents we share this world with. The activity itself is meditative; the changing circumstances allow the maker to practice adaptability as the uncertain future of the artwork cannot be controlled, and it engages all the senses.

To quote Richard Heinberg “Neuroscience research into learning suggests that activities that move beyond linguistic and numeric drills-beyond classrooms and computers and into nature-may be especially effective at engaging the whole person.” “If we want a more resilient society and more resilient communities, we have to plant the seeds today in students both young and old.”
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2023
  • Quin de la Mer

Transformational Effects

audio/visual and digital media

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This audio/visual artwork was inspired by the idea that Transformation is a necessary part of community resilience. As a transformer, I am rarely accepted as a long-term member of a community because I bring with me … change; something that is often considered disruptive to the status quo. I was delighted by Richard Heinberg’s description of transformation as a necessary and purposeful disruption to the system to make room for a new reality that’s non-negotiable. We cannot hold on to “business as usual with all of it’s comforts” and also “operate within the limits of the biosphere”.

Transformational effects are happening and will continue to happen. I believe it is best to look at transformation as a being that is guiding us… pointing out where we should embrace dramatic, life altering changes. Only then will we be able to embrace a “new reality that’s simply non-negotiable”.
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2022
  • Quin de la Mer

Being Breathed


sound drone
new media moving image
2022.

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Process & Media: Fallen Willow leaves provided the internal chemistry used to create images on undeveloped 35mm film. After fixing the images in sea salt, I used ink to make micro-paintings on and around the intimate details radiating from the Willow’s leaf patterns.

I created this piece to bring people together regardless of the seeming distance between them. It seems a perfect way to support community resilience. Recommended experiencing with others near and far. Please use it freely.

We have used technological advancements to aid our ability to survive as a species from the beginning of our origin. Today, technologies allow us to form community bonds through social media. Finding like-minded individuals across the globe is far easier than within the neighborhood one resides. Online relationships are proven to be strong and uniquely intimate, even though the members may never come in physical contact with one another. Love and friendship know no borders, no boundaries, no conditions. We have grown and virtual communities are cherished, nurtured, and relied upon. They provide the support and encouragement needed for our growth as individuals and as a species.

Virtual communities have strong identities because their members are focused. They have the social capital to get things done with strong collective relationships, a wide range of wisdoms, and the capacity to organize. Because virtual communities are made up of international members, the capacity for resilience increases exponentially. These include new ideas for how to adapt to specific crisis, relocation connections, emotional well-being support, education, encouragement, survival needs, inventions, innovations, revolutions.
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2022
  • Quin de la Mer

Texture of Time (Carbon)

Abstract oil painting
sustainable materials, found foraged carbon from Holy Island lindisfarne used as pigment
15x5 feet
2022.

The current art call, What Is Resilience, brings to light the concept Panarchy. As Richard Heinberg from Post Carbon Institute notes, “Panarchy is the idea that systems exist at multiple scales of space and time, and the interactions across those scales help determine what’s happening within the system you’re studying.” He goes on to explain, because systems don’t exist in a vacuum, they are part of a larger-scale system and made up of smaller-scale systems. While current events affect all systems involved, events that happened in the past as well as plans for the future also affect the whole system in the present.

I am particularly drawn to Panarchy, feeling the pull to see our current predicament at a very large scale, a universal scale.

I created this painting, Texture of Time (Carbon), as part of a series about Existence Tissue experiencing The Last Exhale. Time itself being the system capable of remarkable change as it holds the past that is underneath and within, the present that is perceived, and the future that is beyond the horizon. I acknowledge change and persistence as essential factors in the fabric of resilience and see Time as a guide providing alignment with the universe.
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  • Quin de la Mer

Cicada Trance/Fire Dance

Sound Art and Moving Image, July 2021.

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Considering Richard Heinberg’s discussion concerning our biological drives that support addictive behaviors like consumerism, I am interested in making artwork that pairs unifying states of consciousness and subconsciousness with desire to connect and empathize with the more than human residents we share this world with. Moreover, to find fulfillment in activities that do not involve consumerism while feeling disgust for consumer behaviors. The artwork I created several months ago is a start.

I created this sound piece during the massive Cicada Brood X hatching that occurred in Kentucky (and beyond) in 2021. Using field recordings of the three Brood X varieties I spun them through an electronic program playing their sounds at C-1 (brain wave states correlate to sound, C-1 being Gamma = unifying consciousness). Next, I created a series of percussion loops at C-2 (Theta wave states = shamanic drumbeat/sleep transition). Last, I made a breathing loop at C-3 (Delta, deep sleep/heartbeat). I put them together to create a musical trance piece meant to be set on loop for extended listening and paired it with a moving image of a fire.

Feedback is most welcome.
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2022
  • Quin de la Mer

The Spirit of Los Angeles

iPhone photography, digital collage,
direct to media print on dibond
36x42”, 2020/22

On September 6, 2020, I was enjoying the view of the San Gabriel mountains from a lookout point on Mulholland Drive. We were still in the depths of lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic and this outdoor space was a refuge. As I watched, a tiny wisp of smoke appeared, spiraling its way skyward.

The fire spread quickly, becoming one of the largest fires on record in Los Angeles county, burning 115,796 acres and making several types of wildlife face extinction.

I photographed the fire as it raged. When I contacted local friends with words of sorrow, they were nonplussed saying things like, “We always have fires… it’s just Los Angeles… They won’t let it get to people or houses or businesses or stuff… good thing it’s Covid and we have masks”. Los Angelean' perception is so dedicated to consumer ideals, and anthropocentrism, it really weighed heavy on my heart. In response, I digitally collaged super models wearing designer clothing that emphasized mask-wearing during the pandemic over the images of the wildfire.

In support of Post Carbon Institute’s resilience course, I feel this artwork speaks to the need to shift from a consumer economy to a conserver economy. “The story of consumerism appealed to people’s love of novelty, and it fed on our deeply ingrained urge to display symbols of status. Advertising contains millions of images and messages, but all tell essentially the same story: human satisfaction derives from the ownership of certain objects.” “Consumerism replaced satisfying experiences of making, growing, repairing, and sharing with the momentary buzz of buying a new manufactured product. We need to reverse that bargain.” -postcarbon.org
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2021
  • Quin de la Mer

Cyanotype making at the River Tyne

Cyanotype on paper

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Thinking in systems brought me back to Corbridge and the River Tyne. The Cyanotype in progress is 30 feet long 4 feet wide. Rather than painting the entire paper with the UV light-sensitive coating, I chose to use frenetic actions that moved the liquid across the paper. Visually the result is very like the plant life around the river bank. Dogs and birds are proving to be big participants!
©
2022
  • Quin de la Mer

Tide pools

cyanotype prints on paper and fabric,
January 2022

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To prepare for this contribution to the @whatsnextforearth art call, I spent many hours walking in nature thinking about systems. The more I contemplated climate change and a way toward solutions to this global predicament, the easier it was to see the many life forms that exist because their systems are healthy. The answer seemed to fall into place with ease when I imagined our global climate as a system and climate change a systemic problem. Ideas took shape beginning with the @postcarboninstitute notion “reducing fossil fuel consumption while capturing and storing atmospheric carbon in regenerated topsoils” and grew into a systems approach for every environmental problem I could think of. I decided to go to Tynemouth beach and revisit the tide pools there. Tide pools feel like such perfect systems and my heart opens with joy when I am near them. I took paper and fabric coated with UV light-sensitive chemicals and placed them around the tide pools. From dawn till dusk with a snowfall at midday, they collaborated with the North Sea, winter’s light, and other-than-human neighbors to create a visual message in support of thinking in systems.
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2022
  • Quin de la Mer

Earth Won Now Earth

White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, US

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Belief systems change when our infrastructure changes. Not because we choose it willingly, it is in response to global shifts that require us to change the methods we use to survive as a species. We’ve seen the patriarchy through to its end. Earth responded to our war upon them. We live the consequences. Earth won. It’s time for us to replace sky god, king, and patriarchy with peace, love, and loyalty to Earth.

I LOVE YOU EARTH ❤️

From my point of view, we do it cold turkey … or … accept ourselves as intentional participants in collective self-murder and mass extinction of species. There’s no middle ground.
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2021
  • Quin de la Mer

Structure

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A moving image piece created for What’s Next for Earth’s Social Structure at call.
©
2021
  • Quin de la Mer

Cold, Sharp and Merciless

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Cold Sharp & Merciless is a short film created for the art call, Pollution from Greenhouse Gases, @whatsnextforearth. Deeply upset by the impact of environmental pollutions supported by industrial consciousness, this work recognizes Climate Change as the most serious problem caused by human-produced greenhouse gases. Most important, Climate Change causes the extinction of our global ecosystem. That is to say … mass global extinction. With special thanks to Post Carbon Institute, Richard Heinberg, for making Think Resilience a free online course available to all! If interested, go to: education.resilience.org
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2021
  • Quin de la Mer

Climate Change, Global Extinction

Digital art

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2021
  • Quin de la Mer

Climate Change, Global Extinction

Digital art

Climate Change, Global Extinction is a text as a medium piece created for the art call, Pollution from Greenhouse Gases.
©
2021
  • Quin de la Mer

Unknowable Tomorrows

B&W photo taken with a Holga 120N, double exposure, caffenol processing, sea salt fix, 2021.

Breathing Holes, caged-contained-“protected” spaces. Breathing Holes, left relatively wild, not to prevent them from being depleted, but rather to make places for humans to safely enjoy nature’s bounty. These spaces, scattered here and there across this world… I call them Breathing Holes, and when I am within the boundaries, the more than human voices are alive and talkative. Together we look out beyond the edges that press in with their desire to consume, and we feel the massive human engine that never rests… A machine extracting, harvesting, devouring with an insatiable hunger.

…fighting to exist in Unknowable Tomorrows
©
2021
  • Quin de la Mer

Boneyard

digital art
6"×6”

Inspired by the Population and Consumption art call, I created a new piece for my Elsewhen series. There are too many of us consuming our host and home. Our way of life has become a self-generating machine without consciousness… are we a suicidal cultural collective?
©
2021
  • Quin de la Mer

Inside the Petal

phytogram filmmaking still
6"×6”

New work from the series Elsewhen inspired by the Energy art calls. This piece answers the call for work about Energy and a post-carbon world.
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2021
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Memento Mori

Micro moving postcard, experimental film

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Responding to the art call and with thoughts on ENERGY after watching Post Carbon Institute’s Think Resilience course.
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2021
  • Quin de la Mer

Waking

Experimental film

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A Moving Poem about Interconnection. Love is the way we find comfort in a world that is falling apart. Through love, we deeply connect with others and with the natural world. The shift from a narrative of domination and accumulation to a narrative of respect occurs through a world view that honors love above all else.

Location: California Colorado Desert Honorable Mention – Hollywood International Golden Age Festival 2020.
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2021
  • Quin de la Mer
Action Art for a Dying World

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