©Alice Hargrave 2021, Lake Baikal, Russia, warming

In the Lenscratch call Art + Science Award: The Heart of the Matter, we asked photographers to consider a shifting perspective of our current world, placing emphasis on the most pertinent themes that reside throughout the boundaries of art and science. Due to the superlative quality of the submissions, it was challenging to narrow down from 137 portfolios to seven final selections.

This week in Lenscratch, we look at the seven winning artists who use photography to investigate themes emphasizing the impact of emotional, physiological and environmental forces upon individuals and societies. Some projects shed light on dualities like beauty and fear or human rights and authority, while others resonate with a singular vision

In a broad sense, each of the winning artists submitted a series of photographs that makes the invisible visible. From the questioned intentions surrounding surveillance to the exposure of transitioning fungi, these works share interwoven threads with the current frenetic stillness of our world.

Linda Alterwitz and Patrick C. Duffy

©Alice Hargrave 2021, Lake Vanda, Antartica, growing lake, ice melt

Alice Hargrave  is an artist living in Chicago. In her series The Canary in the Lake, she uses sound, video and still photographs to address climate change and its effects on threatened birds and waters. She collaborates with scientists to source visual elements such as microscopic imagery of algae and satellite photography of water to demonstrate the impact of climate change. The myriad of coded patterns of data offers a colorful, integrated voice to address the ongoing issues connected to our endangered lands.

©Alice Hargrave 2021, Lake Tahoe, USA, decreasing clarity

The Canary in the Lake addresses climate change’s affect on avian populations and their global habitat. Collaborating with The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and GLEON (Global Lakes Environmental Observation Network), I use archival birdcall sonograms, and lake science data to give loud visual voice to both birds and waters in peril. The Calls of the Roseate Spoonbill span 22’, using color as advocacy, the vivid magenta color of the bird itself shouts — calling attention to the fact that nesting grounds are being inundated due to sea level rise. The title references the phrase “canary in the coal mine,” because freshwater lakes function as sentinels of climate change. The Conference of the Lakes is an installation of 20 global freshwater “Lake Portraits” printed on 120” x 60” semi transparent fabric panels— lakes from all seven continents are represented. The re-imaged data patterns come from research that depicts the impact climate change is having on each particular lake. The “portraits” are created with diverse source materiel — images of genomes of micro algae that change water pink, satellite imagery revealing growing lakes from ice melt or shrinking from drought, permafrost melt, nitrogen atmospheric deposition, salt deposition, warming, toxic algal blooms, invasive species, and glacial melt, are only some of the critical issues changing the constitution of water and all that depends on it. Through imagery and pattern, I want viewers to pose questions, debate, and seek answers. At once celebratory and cautionary, this is a project that fully believes and expresses science.

©Alice Hargrave 2021, Lake Zigadenus, Canada, decreasing turbidity “Loosing Blue”

©Alice Hargrave 2021, Lake Hillier, Australia, genome of S. ruber, pink lake

©Alice Hargrave 2021, Lake Otsego, NY, USA, warming, invasive species

Alice Hargrave, a photo based artist in Chicago, incorporates sound, video, and photographic imagery within layered site specific installations addressing impermanence: environmental insecurity, habitat loss, and species extinctions. Recently, The Canary in the Lake, revisualizes climate related data from lakes on all seven continents. Hargrave collaborated with The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, to create her project Last Calls, portraits of threatened birds using sound wave patterns of their vocalizations in the wild. Last Calls is widely exhibited, most recently in Lianzhou, China, winning a 2020 Illinois Arts Council Individual Artist Grant. The bird call patterns are also translated into “Haute Couture” garments by Dovima Paris where profits directly benefit the birds. Paradise Wavering Hargrave’s monograph (Daylight 2016) and extensive solo exhibition traveled to multiple venues across the United States. Hargrave, is included in several permanent collections such as The Museum of Contemporary Photography, The Art Institute of Chicago Artist Book Collection, has exhibited internationally, been reviewed in journals such as Huffington Post, BBC News, and ARTNET, and her research led her to Artist Residencies in The Florida Keys, Montana, and Northern Wisconsin. Formerly Hargrave taught full time at Columbia College Chicago. Currently she is doing conservation work.

©Alice Hargrave 2021, Lake Tovel, Italy, magenta algal bloom loss

©Alice Hargrave 2021, Lakes Mendota, Menona, and Wingra, WI, USA, rising salinity

©Alice Hargrave 2021, Lake Abiyata, Ethiopia, shrinking lake, habitat loss

©Alice Hargrave 2021, Lake Thingvallavatn, Iceland, warming, ice loss, finger rafting

©Alice Hargrave 2021, Lake Blavatn, Iceland, new lake, glacier extinction

©Alice Hargrave 2021, The Canary in the Lake, Installation View

©Alice Hargrave 2021, The Canary in the Lake, Installation View

©Alice Hargrave 2021, The Canary in the Lake, Installation View

©Alice Hargrave 2021, The Canary in the Lake, Installation View

Linda Alterwitz a visual artist whose artwork engages photography, collage and interactive installations. Her projects focus on the unseen rhythms of the human body and our relationship to the natural world. Alterwitz’s creative practice has been informed by a fourteen-year exploration of scientific technologies that provide visualizations of our physical and cognitive states.

In 2015, Alterwitz was the recipient of the Nevada Arts Council Visual Artist Fellowship. Her work has been published in Smithsonian Magazine, Orion Magazine, The New Statesman, Musee Magazine among others. She has exhibited her work in both traditional exhibition and site-specific installations in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, China, Spain, Israel, Germany, Greece and Poland. Alterwitz lives and works in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Patrick C. Duffy melds a love for art, giving and entrepreneurship in a state he calls home: Nevada. With his position as President/CEO of Nevada School of the Arts, Duffy spends much of his non-working hours promoting Arts & Culture in the Las Vegas & Reno communities and several out-of-state philanthropic efforts. Having built a long-standing and respected professional sales and marketing career in fine jewelry and hospitality, Patrick Duffy motivates and mentors’ artists, colleagues and customers, and can address and engage public audiences on a variety of best-practice topics including: Priceless Customer Service; Have to/Want to; and the Five Pillars of Life.

Duffy’s passion and commitment for the arts, complete with gifts placed in museums from London, New York, Chicago and Washington D.C. to Las Vegas, Reno, Bloomington, Santa Fe, San Francisco and Honolulu, have garnered both national and international recognition for his philanthropic efforts to the arts. His sense of artistic acumen coupled with a keen eye for museum quality art is reflected in the Goodman Duffy Collection. The legacy of the Goodman Duffy Collection is currently part of the Smithsonian Institute, Archives of American Art.

Duffy has served on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts; former Vice Chairman of The NEON Museum; and curator of The Odyssey: A Visual Art Experience for the annual Life Is Beautiful festival in Downtown Las Vegas. As President of the Las Vegas Art Museum (LVAM), Duffy constructed a relationship (MOU) between the museum and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas–Barrick Museum of Arts to preserve the integrity of the LVAM collection. Additionally, as a former member of the Foundation Board of Directors for Opportunity Village, Duffy took a steering role in developing the Opportunity Village Art and Enrichment program and previously served as the appointed Arts Commissioner for the City of Las Vegas.

An accomplished motivational speaker, Duffy has been featured on global stages for his business experience, and locally; at Leadership Las Vegas on Art and Culture, and as an Inspire speaker at ‘Delivering Happiness Inspire!’ sponsored by Zappos.

Patrick Duffy is a dynamic leader who enjoys seeking the very best in every relationship, both professional and personal. Duffy resides in Las Vegas with his husband Luis, where they both continue to collect, and support the arts in both the US, Europe and Mexico.