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Inspired by the UAE’s Environment, The NYUAD Art Gallery's Fall Exhibition Now Open as the Nation Prepares to Host COP28

Salt Lake Excerpt, UAE (detail), 2023 PET, fabric, screens, water, tanks, light, sound, wave makers, dimensions variable Sound Design, Sound System Design: João Menezes. Lighting Design: Simon Fraulo. Kawader Research Fellow: Fatema Al Fardan. Construction Design: Michael “Mick” Uveges. Voices: Fatema Al Fardan, Joanna Settle, Logan Settle Rishard, Maryam Alshehhi Commissioned by The NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery. Photo: John Varghese.

Blane De St. Croix: Horizon features major new works inspired by the UAE landscape and environment

To coincide with COP28 and the Year of Sustainability, Blane De St. Croix: Horizon, an exhibition inspired by the artist’s study of the UAE environment, has opened to the public at The NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Art Gallery. The artist has unveiled several major new works and sculpture series, which respond to the UAE landscape.

This exhibition is the result of Blane De St. Croix’s year-long residency at The Art Gallery, in the lead up to COP28. During this period, he interviewed faculty and climate experts, and joined dialogues about environmental issues being researched by faculty and students across NYUAD, from the sciences and social sciences to the arts and humanities. A series of these interviews is presented in a video installation in the exhibition. 

The show surveys De St. Croix’s work from ecosystems around the world, and centers on several major new works. The largest of these, Salt Lake Excerpt, UAE, emerged from his collaboration with theater artist Joanna Settle, an Arts Professor and Associate Dean at NYUAD. They co-created this work in response to the salt lake “sabkhas” of the UAE. Together they designed a light, sound, and sculpture landscape made from at least 50,000 plastic water bottles. The exhibition also includes an “infinite landscapes” series based on the UAE’s deserts, developed from work with NYUAD’s Research Visualization and Fabrication lab. Then, in response to his dialogues with a cluster of faculty in the Social Sciences and Humanities who are conducting research on the Himalayas, he produced High Peaks: Himachal (Snow Mountain). In it, sculptures of Mount Everest and five other peaks loom over the visitor, and appear to be melting and collapsing. 

“I have long known Blane De St. Croix for his deep engagement with climate issues. After his highly successful show at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in 2020-2021, I teamed up with Maya Allison, Executive Director of The NYUAD Art Gallery, to invite Blane to undertake a residency and exhibition at NYUAD. This show is the culmination of his time with us and was developed in partnership with so many partners at NYUAD and in the UAE community. As COP28 approaches, we are delighted to see many facets of our university programming aligned with the UAE’s Year of Sustainability.”

NYUAD Vice Chancellor Mariët Westermann

“Commissioning an exhibition of this scale and depth, and working with an artist through the development process, means seeing the subject through their eyes. In this case, it meant seeing the UAE through the eyes of the artist, as he discovered the complex, living landscapes of the region. The subject of our environment looms large as COP28 approaches in the UAE, and we, as a global academic institution, have a critical role to play in the path to climate change solutions. I am moved by the ecological challenge that confronts humanity now, but also reminded of the possibilities for renewal. Art is a vital tool for investigating our place in the world, through the experience of all of our senses, when we enter an exhibition like this. I am grateful to Blane De St. Croix, and everyone who supported his research, for helping us to grow our vision for art as a way to more fully comprehend our world, together with scientists, historians, researchers, experts, and policy makers.”

Executive Director of The NYUAD Art Gallery Maya Allison

“Having traveled to many spectacular and inspiring, but ecologically fragile, environments, including the Gobi Desert and the Arctic Circle, my studies of the equally beautiful UAE desert reinforced a truth that both artists and scientists tell us: our planet is deeply interconnected, as are the environmental challenges we face. Any solutions we might develop in response must account for this fact. I thank the faculty at NYUAD for their support in developing this new body of work, which I hope will inspire people to think in new ways about how we interact with nature.”

Artist Blane De St. Croix
Installation view of Blane De St. Croix: Horizon at The NYUAD Art Gallery, 2023. Photo: John Varghese Foreground: Lava Bed (from the Kilauea series), 2015 Background: Arctic Shoreline, Svalbard Archipelago (series), 2014–2015.

The exhibition is being held as NYU Abu Dhabi is chairing the Universities Climate Network (UCN). Comprising 31 UAE-based institutions of higher education, the UCN collaborates to facilitate dialogues, workshops, public events, policy briefs, and youth participation in the months to and beyond COP28.

Blane De St. Croix: Horizon runs through January 14, 2024, from Tuesday through Sunday, 12-8pm. For more details visit here.

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