Artist
Eve Mosher gave a talk as part of the Marfa Dialogues New York on October 30th,
2013, hosted by ecoartspace at the
Rauschenberg Project Space. The artist shared the story of her public art
project HighWaterLine where she marked the ten-feet-above-sea-level line along nearly 70 miles
of coastline, in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, with a
baseball line marker over the summer of 2007. Mosher recently
collaborated with ecoartspace curator Patricia Watts to develop an HighWaterLine ACTION GUIDE
so that communities anywhere can learn about her work and now mark their own
line using Mosher’s project as inspiration. The
guide was written for educators, nonprofit organizations and individuals,
combining art and science to engage aesthetics while addressing environmental
issues. In the guide, a range of waterline marking materials and other artists' examples are
provided, as well as Mosher’s step-by-step process involved in
performing the project. This is the first in a series of ten guides that will be created by mid 2015 addressing a range of environmental issues.
During
her talk Mosher focused on the evolution of the project into the
Action Guide and her upcoming HighWaterLine projects
for Miami, Philadelphia and London. In these cities, community involvement and
participation are crucial components in the planning stage, which is already
underway. For these new projects she is working on a mapping website
that will collect place-based stories, and collaborations with local artists.
She elaborated about her collaborative process, the open source aspects of the
project and the exponential impacts of giving the work away. Mosher also spoke
about the performative part of the project and how initially she did not
think of it being a performance. However, in the process of engaging with the public
and in conversations with those she met in the streets while walking
and marking the line, that it did indeed become a performance work of art.
The talk at Rauschenberg Project Space took place one year and a day after
Hurricane Sandy. Though Mosher doesn't like the role of prophetess, her HighWaterLine did in fact anticipate the
flooding and storm surges in some areas of New York that went well beyond her
blue marked 100 year flood line - or what anyone thought was possible? Sometimes
being a visionary artist is not all that easy and with people's lives and well
being at stake, Mosher's upcoming HighWaterLine
projects take on a new urgency.
