“Sink or Swim: Designing for a Sea Change” at the Annenberg Space for Photography
By the end of the century, the sea level will be about a foot higher than it is now. Or it could be two feet or three feet higher, or even more. Margaret Leinen, director of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at UC San Diego, points out that low-lying coastal cities such as New Orleans, Miami, Norfolk and New York City face an immediate risk.
While these cities are unlikely to disappear off the map, that’s not the case with the 52 small island nations that are in danger of going from risk to asterisk, as in “was formerly here.” The President of Kiribati has already bought land in Fiji in case his island becomes uninhabitable. Fiji? I think someone in Nevada should give him a call.
Battered and pummeled
“I am drowning, orkle orkle;
Gee I wish I had a snorkel.”
— Antoine Squerb
The Annenberg Space for Photography is hosting an ecologically-driven show that “documents the struggle and ingenuity of communities in increasingly populous coastal regions, facing warmer seas, shifting coastlines, and extreme storms believed to be caused by climate change.” Or at least an angry god like Neptune. The domino effect is already underway, but the exhibition — while showing us plenty of sobering imagery — is all about resiliency and adaptability and not about throwing in the towel.
Curator Frances Anderton is also the host of “DnA: Design and Architecture,” which airs on KCRW. She has contributed an informative essay to the small but succinct catalogue that accompanies “Sink or Swim.” This slim volume features a selection of stunning work by photographers Iwan Baan, Jonas Bendiksen, Paula Bronstein, Monica Nouwens, and Stephen Wilkes. Much more is on view in the galleries.
When Hurricane Sandy devastated the East Coast in October, 2012, Iwan Baan hired a helicopter to take him up above New York City. His aerial photography of lower Manhattan shows much of the area in darkness due to a power blackout.
Yet, the defining image of that cataclysmic storm may well be Stephen Wilkes’s photograph of the Jet Star roller coaster at the Casino Pier Amusement Park, at Seaside Heights, which had been carried offshore and — in Wilkes’s astonishing photograph — sits isolated and partly submerged in becalmed water. Wilkes explained to me at some length at a media preview how the day unfolded that led to his flying above the New Jersey coastline, and why the water in this particular shot looks turquoise. It’s due to all the sand particles whipped up by the force of the surge. He said that seeing the roller coaster in the water reminded him of the scene in the 1968 movie version of “Planet of the Apes” when Taylor (Charlton Heston) finds the Statue of Liberty buried up to its chest in the sand).
Wilkes has also traveled to New Orleans on many occasions to photograph the still ongoing recovery of the city’s devastated Lower Ninth Ward. “Hurricane Katrina alone caused the deaths of nearly 2,000 people and the largest displacement of Americans since the Civil War,” Anderton notes. “Five years later, fewer than 50 percent of residents had returned to their home communities.”
I imagine this number has gone up considerably because the Lower Ninth Ward has been the beneficiary of forward-thinking, weather-resistant homes that should be resilient if confronted by further natural disasters. Many of these new dwellings are sprightly-looking and colorful, exuding a sense of hope and revitalization.
There have been worse
While Hurricane Katrina ranks as one of our most severe natural catastrophes, at least in recent memory, the damage it caused pales with what has occurred elsewhere. Paula Bronstein, based for some years now in Thailand, has captured the aftermath of storms and tsunamis in Southeast Asia. Only a year ago, in November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan killed nearly 8,000 people in the Philippines. But there have been darker days, for example the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The 2004 disaster claimed over 230,000 lives in 14 countries.
In the aftermath of the tsunami that devastated Sendai, the Japanese have constructed a 20-mile seawall, although this is not without controversy in that it has affected natural coastal habitats. But even a well-to-do country like Japan has provided only a fraction — perhaps five percent — of the public housing it has promised in the years since the disaster.
One country that has been conscientious and proactive is the Netherlands, largely because two-thirds of it sits at or below sea level. There’s no room for error. And it’s not just dikes in the old sense of long mounds of dirt. They’ve constructed an immense Delta Works series of dams and storm-surge barriers that some have alluded to as the world’s eighth wonder.
Commissioned photograph for the exhibition. Photo Stephen Wilkes.
Closer to home
At the moment, about 55 percent of Americans live within 50 miles of the coast. I’d not be too concerned about tsunamis if I lived in Covina or Riverside, but what of those people — and, yes, I’m referring to you — who live west of Hawthorne Boulevard, let alone west of Pacific Coast Highway?
The global effect of rising seas hasn’t affected all areas equally, largely due to wind patterns and currents, and so far the West Coast hasn’t experienced the changes that are occurring elsewhere. Our good luck, if we want to call it that, won’t stick around forever. Eventually, persistent high tides will take away our beaches, The Strand and bike paths and Scotty’s near Pier Plaza in Hermosa Beach. Speaking of Hermosa, anyone walking or driving down 8th Street will notice the ominous blue sign at Monterey Boulevard warning that they’ve just entered a tsunami danger zone.
The sign is placed quite high so that it will still be readable even with 20 feet of murky water swirling around under it. Had the design been up to me, the sign would have a skull-and-crossbones next to an image of Noah’s Ark.
Now, let’s consider, if a tsunami approaches Los Angeles, who’s in luck and who’s up Ballona Creek without a paddle? Well, Venice is likely to be our Lower Ninth Ward, but that’s not in our circulation area so who cares about them anyway? (It’s Venice, Italy, that we really want to preserve). So, let’s see. South Redondo has its bluffs, Palos Verdes its cliffs, and most of Manhattan Beach rises up from the ocean fairly quickly — just compare downtown Manhattan Beach with downtown Hermosa Beach: You don’t need to be Einstein (or Alan Turing) to see that Hermosa is doomed. Just imagine if you lived next to, let’s say, La Playita on 14th Street. You could wake up one morning halfway to San Diego.
Historically, marshes and wetlands have often soaked up incoming surges, creating a kind of buffer zone between shoreline and stable ground. But over the last one and a half centuries some 48 percent of these wetlands and their habitats have been decimated in the rush to build right down to the water’s edge. While the Malibu Lagoon has been somewhat restored, that’s only a couple of acres. Perhaps the clock will be turned back in other areas, but will it be enough?
Slowing it down
Of course, all the wetlands could be returned to their former pristine state and it still won’t matter if the planet keeps heating up. Right now we’re applauding lower gas prices but isn’t the effect of this simply to encourage us to drive more? And where does all that spent fuel go? But perhaps the core problem is an ocean-like surge of another sort: overpopulation.
Edwin O. Wilson pointed out that population trends can be mathematically projected, with the resulting impact upon the environment and our quality of life calculated. This led him to remind us of Bertrand Russell’s observation about people’s unwillingness to give much thought to population growth: “He said people would rather commit suicide than learn arithmetic.”
The earth itself is our Noah’s Ark, of course, but it can certainly seem that we’re puncturing it with holes at the same time that we’re applying patches here and there.
One way or another, climate change alters the dynamics of society. Droughts and flooding send entire groups of people on the move (“Grapes of Wrath,” anyone?), determined to survive at any cost, but often with adverse effects on the populations of the places they migrate to.
So it’s a daunting task that lies ahead, and humankind has no choice but to engage in a kind of pas de deux with nature, not trying to overpower it, but to work with it and adapt — and thus the upbeat or positive tone of “Sink or Swim.” The message of the show is that we can throw ourselves a lifeline, but only if we are informed and conscientious about what we’re doing to our planet. It’ll all end in tears, as they say, but maybe at least we won’t have to drown in them. Let’s all choose to swim, or even row… not sink.
Sink or Swim: Designing for a Sea Change is on view through May 3 at the Annenberg Space for Photography, 2000 Avenue of the Stars, in Century City. Hours, Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Free. Parking with validation is $3.50 Wednesday through Friday and $1 on weekends. (213) 403-3000 or go to annenbergspaceforphotography.org.
