Rachel Rozasnki, documenting the Anthropocene
Published in RU Kaleidoscope
Tucked behind TMU Balzac's coffee shop, in a studio in the Image Arts Building on campus, one young artist is grappling with some of the greatest questions of our time.
Rachel Rozanski is documenting the Anthropocene Era with her sketchbook and camera in hand.
Anthropocene refers to a proposed geological era that a growing number of scientists say the Earth has entered. According to National Geographic, scientists propose that the era began around the 1950s and can be characterized by humans' significant impact on the geological state of the planet.
Drawings and photographs covered the surface of a large table in Rozanski's studio. Pencil sketches depicted strange and twisted shapes with vivid textures and patterns. Vague animal-like forms could be made out, but they were warped and disfigured. In her photographs, deep shadows were interspersed with bright pin-points of colour. The images appeared mystical and ethereal, as though they had been taken from another world - which, in a way,
Over the past few years, Rozanski has spent a lot of time in northern countries. There, she recorded the changing climate, collaborating with locals and scientists to inspire her art. Rozanski is in her second year of graduate school studying documentary media at Ryerson's School of Image Arts (IMA). Although she has significant drawing experience, she chose the program because she wanted to try something new.
"It's given me a lot of film experience," she said, adding that documentary is a medium she has always wanted to explore.
"I have always kind of done documentary in my head," said the artist. Rozanski is currently working on compiling footage, interviews, sketches and photographs from the north to create a multimedia art piece called Perma. The exhibit will be on display at the IMA Doc Now Festival in June, an event showcasing the works of master's students in documentary media.
Rozanski's fascination with northern areas started back in 2017, with her first trip north. Travelling to Skagaströnd, Iceland, she spent the winter at the Nes Artist Residency. Skagaströnd is a tiny town perched on the north-western coast, hemmed by flat plains that quickly give way to snowy mountain ranges. At Nes, inspired by her natural surroundings, Rozanski sketched and took photographs.
"I was drawing things that were a combination of organic and manmade materials," said Rozanski, which explains the figures in her sketchbook. In Ice-land, she said, "I wasn't expecting to find what I did, which was pollution from all over the world."
Rozanski used various materials and objects carried into Skagaströnd by the sea to inspire her work. She also worked closely with scientists studying adaptations, extinctions and mutations caused by humans.
"I got really interested in the idea of the Anthropocene, and what it means to be living in this era,” said Rozanski.
Since her trip to Iceland, she has returned north on more than one occasion. "I'm really interested in collaborative work and looking at how to visualize scientific concepts," said Rozanski. Although isolated, northern environments are some of the most affected by climate change and pollution. Rozanski witnessed the changing climate first hand as she traveled aboard the Canada C3 in 2018, an ice-breaker ship that hosted artists, scientists and researchers as it navigated the Northwest Passage.
Rozanski spent 10 days on the boat, journeying from Cambridge Bay to Kugluktuk, Nunavut. Onboard, she worked on sketches, photographs and digital scans, collaborating regularly with her shipmates.
Rozanski said it is an exciting time to be working across disciplines, "because for so long science has been the truth," but she believes people are not treating it that way anymore. She said scientists, "want to get their ideas across to people, but climate change and pollution are hard to conceptualize." Rozanski wants to help people visualize the results of scientific data in her artwork.
Research and critical thinking drive her to create. Working on a large sketch, Rozanski was slow and meticulous, her grey-blue eyes taking in every detail.
The artist returned to Northern Canada last summer, which is where the conception of Perma began. From her home city of Vancouver, she drove up the coast to Dawson City, Yukon and then on to Whitehorse, where she found inspiration at the Yukon Research Centre. Scientists at the centre were studying the permafrost, which is undergoing a massive thaw.
"We all kind of have an idea of permafrost, but I didn't really know what it was or that it covers half of Canada," said Rozanski. According to the Yukon Research Centre, permafrost is ground that remains frozen for at least two years, but in Canada some of the underground ice has been frozen for hundreds of thousands of years.
After gathering maps, scans and research, Rozanski travelled on to Tuktoyaktuk, on the northern shores of the Northwest Territories. There, she embarked on a mission to capture the changing landscape with film. Rozanski said she felt that film was the only way to show the rapid changes in the permafrost. "In this video you can actually see the permafrost melting, when I'm filming, these big ice chunks are constantly falling." she explained, watching a raw clip of her footage from Tuktoyaktuk. An incessant dripping sound could be heard as the ice receded from the land, releasing an array of chemicals that were previously trapped beneath the frozen ground.
Rozanski spoke extensively with the Tuktoyaktuk locals, attempting to understand the vast scope of the changes happening there. In particular, she connected with a young mother named Sarah.
"Sarah lived in a house that is now gone, and her current house is falling into the ocean. When a storm comes, waves hit her window," said Rozanski, grimacing at the memory.
As Perma comes together, Rozanski has taken on another project closer to home. Where she used to live, in the Toronto Portlands, Rozanski has had some strange encounters. "I was noticing dead stuff everywhere; tons of dead animals - a weird amount I started looking into it," she said.
Death and decay fascinate the artist. "It's a good teller of what is going on in nature," she said. Rozanski thought the death she had been seeing might be a sign of greater issues in the area.
After some digging, Rozanski said she found research indicating that the land near Cherry Beach could be filled with toxins and sewage. As Toronto continues to expand, they are re-building the area, "turning it into a really, really fancy, ritzy condo area and naturalizing it," said Rozanski, raising her eyebrows. Her plan is to document the transformation, creating a piece that will analyze the differences between how we think of nature versus the state of the land around us.
"To me, the idea of nature is dead," said Rozanski. "It just doesn't make sense anymore. It's not true anywhere, plastic is part of every ecosystem and inside all of us." How will the Earth look in 100 years? What will human life be like then? "Nobody knows. The scientists don't even know," she explained.
With her work, Rozanski said, "I'd really like to have people look at how they see the environment differently. I'm not sure what people should be doing, but to me anyway, the first step is looking at nature differently.
She would also like to raise awareness and support for ecological research, and see more people take an interest in research happening in their communities. As humanity faces the implications of the proposed Anthropocene Era, Rozanski said her work is increasingly essential to understanding and navigating the changing world.