WEBVTT

00:00:00.634 --> 00:00:03.853
I consider it my life's mission

00:00:03.877 --> 00:00:07.515
to convey the urgency
of climate change through my work.

00:00:07.961 --> 00:00:11.702
I've traveled north to the Arctic
to the capture the unfolding story

00:00:11.726 --> 00:00:13.205
of polar melt,

00:00:13.229 --> 00:00:17.141
and south to the Equator to document
the subsequent rising seas.

00:00:17.903 --> 00:00:21.593
Most recently, I visited
the icy coast of Greenland

00:00:21.617 --> 00:00:24.483
and the low-lying islands of the Maldives,

00:00:24.507 --> 00:00:28.984
connecting two seemingly disparate
but equally endangered

00:00:29.008 --> 00:00:30.475
parts of our planet.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:31.504 --> 00:00:37.547
My drawings explore moments
of transition, turbulence

00:00:37.571 --> 00:00:40.285
and tranquility in the landscape,

00:00:40.309 --> 00:00:43.791
allowing viewers to emotionally connect

00:00:43.815 --> 00:00:46.530
with a place you might never
have the chance to visit.

00:00:47.185 --> 00:00:51.579
I choose to convey the beauty
as opposed to the devastation.

00:00:52.230 --> 00:00:56.662
If you can experience the sublimity
of these landscapes,

00:00:56.686 --> 00:01:00.299
perhaps you'll be inspired
to protect and preserve them.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:01.545 --> 00:01:04.912
Behavioral psychology tells us
that we take action

00:01:04.936 --> 00:01:09.062
and make decisions based
on our emotions above all else.

00:01:09.497 --> 00:01:12.933
And studies have shown
that art impacts our emotions

00:01:12.957 --> 00:01:16.284
more effectively than a scary news report.

00:01:17.193 --> 00:01:20.637
Experts predict ice-free Arctic summers

00:01:20.661 --> 00:01:23.163
as early as 2020.

00:01:23.521 --> 00:01:27.688
And sea levels are likely to rise
between two and ten feet

00:01:27.712 --> 00:01:29.038
by century's end.

00:01:30.364 --> 00:01:35.040
I have dedicated my career
to illuminating these projections

00:01:35.064 --> 00:01:37.128
with an accessible medium,

00:01:37.152 --> 00:01:41.606
one that moves us in a way
that statistics may not.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:42.684 --> 00:01:45.363
My process begins
with traveling to the places

00:01:45.387 --> 00:01:47.686
at the forefront of climate change.

00:01:47.710 --> 00:01:50.672
On-site, I take thousands of photographs.

00:01:50.696 --> 00:01:51.939
Back in the studio,

00:01:51.963 --> 00:01:56.223
I work from both my memory
of the experience and the photographs

00:01:56.247 --> 00:01:58.502
to create very large-scale compositions,

00:01:58.526 --> 00:02:00.666
sometimes over 10 feet wide.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:01.412 --> 00:02:05.904
I draw with soft pastel, which is dry
like charcoal, but colors.

00:02:06.456 --> 00:02:09.754
I consider my work drawings
but others call them painting.

00:02:10.203 --> 00:02:14.224
I cringe, though, when I'm referred to
as a "finger painter."

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:14.248 --> 00:02:15.366
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:15.390 --> 00:02:17.695
But I don't use any tools

00:02:17.719 --> 00:02:20.196
and I have always used
my fingers and palms

00:02:20.220 --> 00:02:22.646
to manipulate the pigment on the paper.

00:02:23.990 --> 00:02:27.576
Drawing is a form of meditation for me.

00:02:28.354 --> 00:02:29.981
It quiets my mind.

00:02:30.437 --> 00:02:32.244
I don't perceive what I'm drawing

00:02:32.268 --> 00:02:33.641
as ice or water.

00:02:33.665 --> 00:02:36.127
Instead, the image is stripped down

00:02:36.151 --> 00:02:39.840
to its most basic form of color and shape.

00:02:40.964 --> 00:02:42.306
Once the piece is complete,

00:02:42.330 --> 00:02:45.466
I can finally experience
the composition as a whole,

00:02:45.490 --> 00:02:48.052
as an iceberg floating
through glassy water,

00:02:48.076 --> 00:02:50.766
or a wave cresting with foam.

00:02:51.884 --> 00:02:55.806
On average, a piece this size
takes me about,

00:02:55.830 --> 00:02:57.520
as you can see, 10 seconds.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:57.544 --> 00:02:59.324
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:59.348 --> 00:03:02.871
(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:03.336 --> 00:03:07.792
Really, more like 200 hours,
250 hours for something that size.

00:03:07.816 --> 00:03:10.798
But I've been drawing ever since
I could hold a crayon, really.

00:03:10.822 --> 00:03:12.735
My mom was an artist, and growing up,

00:03:12.759 --> 00:03:15.245
we always had art supplies
all over the house.

00:03:15.269 --> 00:03:17.822
My mother's love of photography

00:03:17.846 --> 00:03:21.381
propelled her to the most
remote regions of the earth,

00:03:21.405 --> 00:03:23.811
and my family and I were fortunate enough

00:03:23.835 --> 00:03:26.536
to join and support her
on these adventures.

00:03:27.139 --> 00:03:29.847
We rode camels in Northern Africa

00:03:29.871 --> 00:03:32.918
and mushed on dog sleds
near the North Pole.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:33.871 --> 00:03:38.067
In August of 2012,
I led my first expedition,

00:03:38.091 --> 00:03:42.605
taking a group of artists and scholars
up the northwest coast of Greenland.

00:03:44.232 --> 00:03:47.122
My mother was originally
supposed to lead this trip.

00:03:47.146 --> 00:03:49.861
She and I were in the early
stages of planning,

00:03:49.885 --> 00:03:52.447
as we had intended to go together,

00:03:52.471 --> 00:03:55.146
when she fell victim to a brain tumor.

00:03:55.812 --> 00:03:59.809
The cancer quickly took over
her body and mind,

00:03:59.833 --> 00:04:02.380
and she passed away six months later.

00:04:03.110 --> 00:04:05.095
During the months of her illness, though,

00:04:05.119 --> 00:04:10.619
her dedication to the expedition
never wavered, and I made a promise

00:04:10.643 --> 00:04:12.508
to carry out her final journey.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:13.374 --> 00:04:16.517
My mother's passion for the Arctic

00:04:16.541 --> 00:04:19.914
echoed through my experience in Greenland,

00:04:19.938 --> 00:04:22.914
and I felt the power

00:04:22.938 --> 00:04:25.488
and the fragility of the landscape.

00:04:26.738 --> 00:04:29.398
The sheer size of the icebergs

00:04:29.422 --> 00:04:30.826
is humbling.

00:04:31.168 --> 00:04:34.591
The ice fields are alive
with movement and sound

00:04:34.615 --> 00:04:36.752
in a way that I never expected.

00:04:37.284 --> 00:04:39.532
I expanded the scale of my compositions

00:04:39.556 --> 00:04:44.317
to give you that same sense of awe
that I experienced.

00:04:45.021 --> 00:04:48.716
Yet, while the grandeur
of the ice is evident,

00:04:48.740 --> 00:04:50.676
so, too, is its vulnerability.

00:04:51.042 --> 00:04:52.257
From our boat,

00:04:52.281 --> 00:04:57.645
I could see the ice sweating
under the unseasonably warm sun.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:58.940 --> 00:05:02.503
We had a chance to visit
many of the Inuit communities in Greenland

00:05:02.527 --> 00:05:05.357
that now face huge challenges.

00:05:05.381 --> 00:05:08.697
The locals spoke to me
of vast areas of sea ice

00:05:08.721 --> 00:05:11.407
that are no longer
freezing over as they once did.

00:05:11.431 --> 00:05:14.509
And without ice, their hunting
and harvesting grounds

00:05:14.533 --> 00:05:16.295
are severely diminished,

00:05:16.319 --> 00:05:19.160
threatening their way
of life and survival.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:20.616 --> 00:05:22.511
The melting glaciers in Greenland

00:05:22.535 --> 00:05:26.879
are one of the largest
contributing factors to rising sea levels,

00:05:26.903 --> 00:05:29.019
which have already begun to drown

00:05:29.043 --> 00:05:31.873
some of our world's lowest-lying islands.

00:05:32.942 --> 00:05:36.458
One year after my trip to Greenland,
I visited the Maldives,

00:05:37.145 --> 00:05:40.352
the lowest and flattest country
in the entire world.

00:05:40.752 --> 00:05:44.785
While I was there, I collected
images and inspiration

00:05:44.809 --> 00:05:46.510
for a new body of work:

00:05:47.072 --> 00:05:51.105
drawings of waves lapping
on the coast of a nation

00:05:51.129 --> 00:05:55.283
that could be entirely underwater
within this century.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:57.484 --> 00:06:01.027
Devastating events happen every day

00:06:01.051 --> 00:06:04.299
on scales both global and personal.

00:06:04.844 --> 00:06:06.107
When I was in Greenland,

00:06:06.131 --> 00:06:10.045
I scattered my mother's ashes
amidst the melting ice.

00:06:10.743 --> 00:06:15.830
Now she remains a part
of the landscape she loved so much,

00:06:15.854 --> 00:06:19.941
even as it, too, passes
and takes on new form.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:21.095 --> 00:06:23.863
Among the many gifts my mother gave me

00:06:23.887 --> 00:06:26.887
was the ability to focus on the positive,

00:06:26.911 --> 00:06:28.434
rather than the negative.

00:06:29.083 --> 00:06:35.164
My drawings celebrate the beauty
of what we all stand to lose.

00:06:35.845 --> 00:06:41.639
I hope they can serve as records
of sublime landscapes in flux,

00:06:41.663 --> 00:06:46.285
documenting the transition
and inspiring our global community

00:06:46.309 --> 00:06:48.427
to take action for the future.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:49.102 --> 00:06:50.309
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:50.333 --> 00:07:00.978
(Applause)