Mezzanine Gallery

H20 SOS: WATER WARNING

By Lani Asunción

As our earth is undergoing rapid transformation, this work stands as a stark reminder of the profound shifts reshaping the coastline of the City of Boston and across the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, and serves as a warning of environmental change, echoing amidst the accelerating climate crisis. This installation incorporates repurposed buoys, camo netting, and printed banner flags crafted from restructured US military camo juxtaposed with traditional Ilocano woven binakol designs from the Philippines. The design embodies waves of the ocean and offers protection against malevolent forces.

Climate change is not a distant threat but an urgent reality, exacerbating existing inequalities and disproportionately impacting marginalized communities. This installation critiques the military-industrial complex and high-tech industries, whose contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and extractive practices propel the climate crisis forward. This work speaks to areas like Boston's Chinatown where the effects of environmental racism are keenly felt, with neighboring Roxbury and Dorchester facing the brunt of urban heat islands.

Sections of the work are embedded with custom designed renderings of Climate Ready Boston reports projecting 2070 coastal flooding. It also incorporates I-Ching Abyssal Water Hex from the Book of Changes, in addition to Morse code SOS and binary code that translates to “All That is Solid Melts into Air,” a phrase grounded in the pre-colonial Philippine ideology of kapwa, which means “shared identity” or “shared humanity.” It is the concept that we navigate through spaces with a community rather than alone, and that we have a responsibility to care for others as we care for ourselves. It reminds us of our responsibility as a city, community, and society to care for and protect one another and our natural environment.

Lani Asunción (they/she) informs their socially conscious art practice through multimedia technologies and archival research, which is rooted in interdisciplinary approaches, primarily in public art and performance. This focus centers on environmental justice and community engagement through participatory performances, large scale sculptural installations, experimental video and sound work in the form of transmedia ritual and storytelling. As a queer Filipinx artist, based in Boston, Asunción explores the intricacies of identity and belonging, navigating counter-narratives of communal resistance to settler colonial systems and points instead to collective liberation. Seeking to create public spaces where alternative ethics of care, community healing, and social solidarity can thrive.

This exhibition is organized by Galleries and Exhibitions Manager, Mariana Rey in dialogue with the artist. To learn more about the artist please visit laniasuncion.com.