In a whirlwind of environmental advocacy, globally celebrated artist Diane Burko spoke about her instrumental exhibition, Extraction: A Dialogue of Extremes, at Rowan University’s Museum of Contemporary Art last Wednesday.
Burko, a Professor Emerita at the Community College of Philadelphia and occasional guest speaker at Princeton University, has focused on the world’s deteriorating environmental conditions since 2006, when something struck her: the landscapes she had long cherished no longer exuded the beauty and integrity they once did. “Extraction” is a tale of dichotomies within that theme: the melting ice caps in the Arctic and the way corporations and governments burn through the Amazon’s resources, including unconscionable deforestation.
“The material presence of this exhibit not only allows us to see those conditions but to feel them, and there’s a physicality…to the wooden components…I feel that it helps transport us to a place where we could imagine ourselves in different settings, inside the work itself,” said Sam Horowitz, assistant professor of sculpture at Rowan.
To craft these incredibly personal pieces, Burko worked with the Arctic Radium Isotope Observing Network (ARION). This organization monitors climate change by tracking radium isotopes moving from shallow Arctic coastlines and the continental shelf into the open ocean. The National Science Foundation financed the work, and in collaboration with Associate Professor Dr. Lauren Kipp, amongst others, Burko artfully illustrates the devastation of climate change to the masses.
