Climate change is a major threat to the artist's native country

Martha Atienza protects Filipino shores with robotic mangroves

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In the Philippines, an archipelagic country consisting of about 7,640 islands, climate change isn’t so much a threat as a daily reality. It’s a problem that is especially acute for members of small coastal communities dependent on fishing, who, as the oceans heat up and sea levels rise, are at the highest risk of losing their homes and livelihoods. Having grown up on Bantayan Island in Cebu, a province made up of a main island and more than 150 surrounding islands and islets,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/15202/Martha-Atienza" target="_blank">Martha Atienza</a> has seen the destructive&nbsp;effects of&nbsp;global warming firsthand. In her lifetime, the 38-year-old Dutch-Filipino artist has&nbsp;seen more&nbsp;than 20 meters&nbsp;of Bantayan&nbsp;Island’s coastline disappear.The daughter of a sea captain, Atienza first began to make collaborative work about the fishing community of Bantayan Island in an attempt to understand the lives of men working at sea. But as her awareness of the effects of&nbsp;climate change grew, she started asking herself how art could be used as a tool ‘not to just facilitate dialogue but&nbsp;to change attitudes and look at collaboration or knowledge production in a different way.’ For her recent exhibition at Manila-based gallery&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1440/Silverlens" target="_blank">Silverlens</a>, this aspiration took the form of two kinetic&nbsp;sculptures (Equation of State I and II, 2019), made using what Atienza calls ‘island technology.’ Interested in how the inventiveness and&nbsp;resilience of islanders could be applied to&nbsp;fight the climate crisis, the works utilize car&nbsp;wipers, among other recycled objects, in&nbsp;a mechanical system that replicates tidal patterns by&nbsp;pulling&nbsp;mangrove plants in&nbsp;and out of pools of water. Known for their ability to survive under hostile conditions, provided they’re planted correctly, mangroves can provide communities with vital protection against tropical storms.

Alongside the mangrove baths, the exhibition also included two videos focused on Bantayan Island and the surrounding region. Both are named after the GPS coordinates of where they were filmed, combined with the date, time and height of the tide when the shoot took place. The first video, a three-channel projection, depicts fishermen breathing in rough waters, while the second, a single-channel projection, is a continuous shot of the coast taken from a speedboat as it circumnavigates an island badly damaged by a super-typhoon in 2013. With a combined length of more than six hours and little in the way of narrative action, these films don’t have to be watched from beginning to end. Instead, Atienza hopes that their slow tempo and repetitiveness will encourage viewers to really consider the vulnerable communities most affected by climate change. ‘I don’t mind if people walk in and out,’ she says. ‘What I really want the work to do is come back to them when they’re about to go to sleep.&nbsp;Climate change isn’t only happening in the Philippines. It’s a common issue we all have, and we need to talk to each other as neighbors.’&nbsp;

Martha Atienza is represented by Silverlens, Makati City.Top image:&nbsp;Martha Atienza, Our Islands 11°16'58.4 N 123°45'07.0 E (detail), 2017. Single-channel HD video, 1'12" minute loop. Courtesy of the artist and Silverlens, Makati City.

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