Changing Cities
Netherlands & Adaptation to Rising Water
From medieval era swamps to the 21st century flood control technology, this region whose name means “low-lying” has learned enough to offer many lessons to the rest of the world. Huge areas of the country were essentially swamp-like prior to about 1200. Since then they have steadily increased the land area that is dry and habitable. There have also been serious floods, most notably one in 1530 which returned significant amounts of “land” to the sea.
Oosterschelde Storm Surge Barrier
Built between 1976 and 1986, this is ultimately just another step or phase in the Dutch efforts to tame the sea and create stable land. It is designed to last 200 years, as in till 2186. The barrier is 5.4 miles long and includes two islands plus three sections of adjustable dam barriers; which have been closed 28 times between 1986 and 2024. Its location in the Zeeland region protects a coastal bay in the area where a flood in 1530 washed away a large swaths of land, including the city of Reimerswaal. See also the depiction of this barrier in “Canals and Barriers” painting below.
transfer photo + Acrylics
18" x 36"
2024
Dutch Canals from Below
Dutch canals have been key to the creation of stable land for homes, transportation for commerce and life. These two paintings imagine the world underwater, with stationary as well as traveling life up on the surface. Awareness has grown of the importance of water quality for canal and surrounding ecosystems.
As an alternative to fighting sea level rise, people are looking at how floating homes, buildings even cities can contribute to rather than degrade our ecosystems..
Canvas on panel board + Acrylics
(top) 9" x 12"
(right) 12.5” x 9”
2024
Dutch Triptych
The three paintings below depict aspects of the waters that have shaped Holland’s history.
Rotterdam
Rotterdam’s place in world commerce dates from the 14th century and achieved the distinction of becoming the world’s largest dredged harbor in 1930, just prior to being decimated in WWII. The city’s subsequent rebuilding with high tech flood control has created an innovative regional nexus for living, working, and industrial development.
Mixed media: wood, zinc, steel rod, photos + Acrylics
33” x 24”
2019
Canals and Barriers
Building cities and regions around water infrastructure has shaped the history of the Netherlands. The city of Delft (from the Dutch word for “dig”) was built in about the year 1100 organized by its original canals; the first two created a ridge between them on which driven piles would then support houses.
More recently the scale of water infrastructure has included building barriers to protect whole regions. In the years 1976-86, the 9 km the Oosterchelde Barrier was built to protect the region from a flood “unlikely to occur more than once in 4000 years”.
Visit www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/en
Contoured wood, plaster of Paris, photos + Acrylics
33” x 24”
2019
Amsterdam
Meaning “Dam in a watery area”, the city was founded in 1250. The city grew in the 17th century to be a fortified domain for water management and defense; it contained the world’s most intricate system of canals and moats connecting homes, merchants, and warehouses. The modern city, now quieter and cleaner, is still evolving in its water-centric way, threatened as ever by rising seas but with nearly a millennia of experience in adapting.
Contoured wood, historical map, photo + Acrylics
33” x 24”
2019
Submerging Metropolis
Partly driven by climate change but more so by the dropping water table due to expansive development, Jakarta is sinking with some areas permanently below sea level. Government functions are scheduled to move entirely to a new inland city to take pressure off the submerging city.
Jakarta Sinking
Jakarta is sinking due to extraction of drinking water from deep aquifers. The country has decided to relocate all the governmental functions to a brand new city on the adjacent island of Borneo, near Balikpapan. The area is less prone to natural disaster, but there are environmental/wildlife consequences associated with losing 990 square miles of forests. Jakarta will need to recover from the economic and social loss of the exodus of its government functions.
Countoured wood, transfer photo + Acrylics
18" x 36"
2020
Storms & Wells in Jakarta
Jakarta’s dual jeopardy results from (a) the subsidence of ground level as wells pull water from its aquifers and (b) the inexorable rise of its surrounding sea with its storm surges.
Transfer photo + Acrylics
24" x 30"
2020
Transit, Cities and Change
As cities become denser, rapid transit makes possible walkable rather than car-dominated streets. Increases in the availability of rapid transit make possible easier access to all city life and encourage new businesses, with more job opportunities and often more convenient housing. But there can be loss of familiar things and places; these changes are wonderful for some and cause others pain.
Haymarket Time-Lapse
Haymarket Square lies at the heart of a dramatically changing downtown Boston intersection served by two subway lines, one the oldest line in the country. In the 1950's an elevated Central Artery sliced right through it, dividing Government Center from the North End (and the waterfront). Over the coming decades most of the land was redeveloped as part of Urban Renewal, including the creation of “Government Center.” The Central Artery has recently been put below grade creating a linear surface park reconnecting city with waterfront.
This image is a vertical stack with new foundations threading through the historic subway tunnels, the just-demolished elevated artery, and the now being-disassembled garage, making way for high-rise retail-office-housing redevelopment. The painting is a time-lapse record of 40 years of changes in the heart of downtown Boston..
Acrylics over transferred photos
44" x 24"
2023
New Station
A collage of real and hypothetical buildings surround a hypothetically-aged new station--the extension of Boston’s Green Line to Union Square Somerville, fulfilling a decades-old commitment to expand transit access in conjunction with replacement/expansion of Boston's highways. Union Square is becoming a dense center for mixed use development, including new apartment buildings and life science labs. The formerly affordable character of the area is transforming into (much) taller buildings and higher rents,
The culture of the place, which included a strong mix of ethnic folks, foods and lifestyles, is highly prized, and hopefully some of these valued qualities will endure.
Acrylics over transferred photos
23" x 29"
2023
Double Exposure
Transit riding barely subsisted through Covid; people persevered to maintain essential jobs and rudiments of daily life. Private journeys through public spaces.
Mixed Media: Acrylics over transferred photo
20" x 18"
2023
Screen Life on the T
An outward appearance of isolation can be a personal connection to any place/person in any virtual world. As exuberant or withdrawn as we choose.
Photo collage + Acrylics
24" x 18"
2023
Urban Renewal Misguided & Not
Nominally intended to support cities in their efforts to improve blighted areas (often caused by redlining), urban renewal and highway funding too often enabled the destruction of low income and minority neighborhoods. Now that federal funding is so reduced, the work of bettering these communities falls to state and local initiatives struggling for adequate financing.
Neighborhood Highways - Miami
Photo sources include: Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives, Miami Dade College, as referenced in The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein, 2017
Mixed Media: Photo College, Mylar + Acrylics
18" x 24"
2020
Performing a Cultural Shift
Cities at their best are places for all to succeed. The day-to-day pressures and economics shape our lives, sometimes for the generally better, sometimes not so equitably. Many of the artistic expressions of musicians, poets, painters, dreamers, and more, bring understanding and hope. The cities are crucibles for these efforts and inspirations.
Belonging and Othering in Sennott Park
This dance, video and spoken word performance focuses attention on the ways that people who are not the same as others can create/be part of “belonging” in a community rather than being “othered” by the community. Open and free to the public the performance takes place in a basketball court located in in a park in central Cambridge—an historically integrated and culturally mixed neighborhood. Directed by Jay Paris and featuring the beheard.world Performing Arts Company.
Photo collage + Acrylics
22” x 36”
2024
Together - 6’ Apart
This digital collage uses stills from the film “Together - 6’ Apart”, which is a beheard.world film, directed by Jay Paris and featuring the beheard.world Performing Arts Company
2021