ARTISTS STATEMENT
I work across performance, video, text and social engagement, exploring emotional, psychological, and sensorial experiences of living in climate crisis. Through my project-based work I ask, ‘What does it feel like to live on a warming planet?’ My investigations are often set in handmade worlds that appeal to a sense of play, openness and vulnerability. I use humor and absurdism to disarm, inviting others to feel comfortable confronting uncomfortable realities of global warming. “Questions for a Dinosaur Family Photos” is my most recent iteration of “Questions for a Dinosaur,” a body of work that asks, When I am fearful for the future, what am I fearful for, exactly? In its original form (video, live performance, fine art print portfolio), I asked a dinosaur 106 questions about extinction (including the question, Is it ok to have a child? Is there hope in that?). Now with my own child, I explore the question, What does it mean to raise children in mass extinction? The work is a collaboration between me, my son Ernie, and my husband Jordan Levie who photographs us. The original name for this series was The Possibility of a Door, from Rebecca Solnit’s Book “Hope in the Dark.” In it she says, “Hope is not a door, but a sense that there might be a door at some point.” It’s scary to have children at the edge of climate collapse (although when has the future ever been dependable?), but Solnit’s words point me in a useful direction.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Rachel Garber Cole is a Brooklyn-based artist, making project-based work that asks, ‘What does it feel like to live on a rapidly warming planet?’ Her videos, performances and prints have been exhibited in galleries and film festivals nationally and internationally. Recent works have been exhibited at Radiator Gallery (LIC, NY); The Warner Gallery (Millbrook, NY); Torpedo Factory Arts Center (Alexandria, VA); Collar Works (Troy, NY); GirrlHaus Cinema (Berlin & Cambridge, MA); and At the Fringe Experimental Film and Videopoem Screening (Tranas, Sweden). Rachel’s recent show, “The Warmest Years on Record,” launched in June 2022 as an audio-based public art installation in collaboration with NYC Parks Department and Brooklyn Community Gardens. Rachel is the recipient of three Brooklyn Arts Council Arts Fund Grants and a grant from the Puffin Foundation. She has attended residencies at Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts (Ithaca, NY), Ucross Foundation (Wyoming), NARS International Residency Program (Brooklyn, NY) and the Studios at Key West (Key West, FL). She has been a visiting artist at Cornel University (Ithaca, NY), Massachusetts School of Art and Design (Boston, MA), and The History Center of Tompkins County (Ithaca, NY). Rachel’s print portfolio, “Questions for a Dinosaur” was recently acquired for the collections of Contemporary Art at the University of Maryland, College Park.
© Rachel Garber Cole