'Under Pressure': San Francisco artist's exhibit in Chicago is an SOS to save the planet
"I'm asking the community to plead for the environment save our souls, save our shorelines, save our species"
CHICAGO -- A San Francisco artist is showing off a call to climate action in a special exhibit in Chicago.
"Under Pressure" by Mexican-born and San Francisco-based artist Ana Teresa Fernández is now on exhibit at Chicago's National Museum of Mexican Art. The four-year project is meant to ignite a change.
"This white balloon is supposed to signify the globe or a glacier," Fernández said.
Wearing a stiletto, Fernández used the weight of her own foot to mimic how human activity is pushing Mother Earth to the breaking point.
"Everyone knows balloons; they understand the elasticity that they pull, they pull, they pull, until it finally ruptures," Fernández said.
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"Under Pressure" shows how climate change can be seen, felt and heard, but it also captures a deafening silence.
"It is said that in the next hundred years we will be losing around 7,000 languages," Fernández said. "And so creating 'shh,' which is a sound, and it's onomatopoeic, it goes across hundreds of languages. It needs no translation."
And from from her detailed oil paintings, to a hose she transformed and sculpted into a silver-feathered symbol called a Quetzalcoatl, the constant theme of the exhibit is water.
"Water is life. I have always been really connected to water. And I think that when I make art, I, oftentimes, I am both the driver and the vehicle," Fernández said.
And while the art on the walls of the museum reflects damage done to the planet, Fernández took her vision outside, using nature and the power of community to make a call to action.
"I knew that there's all these issues surrounding the Great Lakes, especially in Chicago, what the Great Lakes mean to the residents here and the access to water," Fernández said.
On April 11, Fernandez rallied hundreds of people to bring her art to life along Chicago's lakefront, sending out a giant S.O.S. to the world.
She called it a social monument, and she's done it once before at Laguna Beach in Southern California.
"I offer people to hold mirrors, and they place them in the shape of the Morse code S.O.S., which is three dashes, three dots, and we place them along the beach. And we ask participants to hold up the mirrors so that they may speak in light," Fernández said.
That message of extreme desperation defines "Under Pressure," she said.
"I'm asking the community to plead for the environment, save our souls, save our shorelines, save our species," Fernández said.
"Under Pressure" is open now at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago and runs through August 2.
