#apocalypseproject

I'm concurrently exhibiting two editions of An Olfactory Portrait of the Amazon Rainforest in Dublin and Manila. These editions were selected for the exhibitions to fit their themes, and it's been fun making them for these two very different cities. The one for Science Gallery Dublin's In Case of Emergency exhibition features scents I smelled during my residency with LABVERDE in Brazil. These are things I encountered in the forest that are at risk from climate change and other human impacts.

The other one at the Manila Biennale which just opened is an edition that interprets the olfactory memories of 18th & 19th century explorers such as Alexander von Humboldt and Henry Walter Bates. I'm uncomfortably aware that these are narratives of a bunch of white guys as they were all I could find, though I intentionally picked those of naturalists. I'm still on the lookout for records that show a diversity of perspectives if you know of any (language doesn't matter) as this is an ongoing project that is one of my favorites.

(Hey, at least the one in Dublin is based on the account of a woman, of color, from the developing world and is mixed and multi in most things: me.)

Check these out in Dublin and Manila, and follow the next steps of this project and other works of The #ApocalypseProject on www.apocalypse.cc or #OlfactoryAmazon

Fang, Chiang Mai—It was June 3rd, my birthday, and what better way to spend it than with children and youth for my final workshop as artist-in-residence of Plan International! We made perfumes, sculptures, theater, and paper architecture. Here are some photos, and thank you, Plan International Bangkok and Chiang Mai chapters, plus Kim Junmookda, my residency host!

Tacloban City, Leyte, Philippines—Last May 6, I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Tacloban City, thanks to my ongoing art residency with Plan International. Tacloban was a city that was devastated by Supertyphoon Haiyan / Yolanda in 2013. I founded The Apocalypse Project around the same time, and this city figures well in my talks. Four years later, the city has shown amazing physical recovery. A ship that ran aground has been turned into a memorial:

Another ship that went aground

I hopped on a tricycle and paid my respects to one of the mass graves for Haiyan victims:

A mass grave in Tacloban for Haiyan / Yolanda victims

I was a bit alarmed at people who rebuilt their houses by the sea:

People rebuilt their houses by the sea

Resilience involves adaptive design. Here is a new sign that alerts for storm surges, which is a new term the residents learned, as the waves had never been that high before:

Storm surge sign

I tried to put myself in the position of people who lost their houses. Even the big ones didn't stand a chance:

A house devastated by Hai

The next day was my workshop on art and climate change. I was a bit nervous—for the past years I had to encourage people (mostly privileged ones) to widen their imaginations on climate change events, and here I was with young people who had experienced way more than I had:

We made some perfumes for The Ephemeral Marvels Perfume Store:

And made science fiction shadow puppet theater:

Shadow puppet theater workshop

We also made sculptures of things in their community that are at risk from climate change for a new project I'll be releasing in a few months (seriously, how lovely are these?!):

It was the kids' first brush with polymer clay, and it was fun toasting these in the oven.

Some of the final outcomes:

The kids' favorite activity was building resilient communities using paper:

Cutting up paper infrastructure and nature for climate resilient communities!

Resilient architecture building

It was a true honor to work with these young people. I can't wait to turn these outcomes into a proper exhibition! Stay tuned.

Thanks and abrazos to my Colombian family at Casa Tres Patios who featured The Sewer Soaperie in their publication, Conocimiento: Arte / Ciencia / Trascendencia — Funciones y Roles! The project is featured on pages 20-22. You can read the rest of the beautifully designed issue here.

The Apocalypse Project: Urban Harvest at 1335Mabini

17 September - 14 October 2016

The Apocalypse Project: Urban Harvest is the latest body of work from Catherine Sarah Young’s The Apocalypse Project, an interdisciplinary platform that explores climate change and our environmental futures, which she began in 2013 during an art science residency at the Singapore-ETH Zurich Future Cities Laboratory. The project has since traveled to Manila, Seoul, San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Medellin.

Although it has end-of-the-world connotations, the word “apocalypse” comes from a Greek word that means “disclosure” or “to lift the veil”. The Apocalypse Project isn’t solely about potential catastrophic events, it is also about revealing the human face of environmental problems through these projects.

The black and white photo Earth Days recreates an iconic photograph of the first Earth Day held on April 22, 1970 in New York City, suggesting that an environmental consciousness is still needed as mankind struggles to adapt in the Anthropocene. Climate Change Couture, an ongoing series where the artist collaborates with researchers and local communities to design city-specific garments that its inhabitants might wear in possible scenarios under climate change, is also exhibited.  

The Ephemeral Marvels Perfume Store, another ongoing series, explores the scents we could lose as the planet heats up due to climate change. T.E.M.P.S. Colombia (temps is French for time) includes a collection of eight scents that inspired the artist during her stay in Colombia. These are distilled by the artist directly from their sources or mixed from her collection of essential oils. Smell is closely related to memory, and so in smelling the scents, which visitors can during the exhibition, the artist hopes that they remember the memories they have from these smells and create a personal story with the environment. This is the third collection of perfumes.

Finally, The Sewer Soaperie documents the artist’s research into oil and grease, specifically used cooking oil and its journey into the sewer systems of cities and how it congeals in the pipes, contributing to and worsening urban flooding as storms become stronger. She first examined the situation of sewers and nearby rivers in Medellin, and then continued the project in Manila, collecting raw sewage and used cooking oil from nearby restaurants, and turning them into soaps that visitors are invited to use.

In the three years of working on The Apocalypse Project, the artist has collaborated and communed with researchers, industries, chefs, think-tanks, museums, and local communities to produce these interactive projects. Public participation is also critical in her work, and she is specifically interested in children’s reactions to these projects, as they will inherit the brunt of climate change. Urban Harvest refers to the collection of raw material, memories, stories, and conversations that will arise from a planetary shift that affects us all. The intention of the project as a whole is to generate inclusive dialogue about climate change, to inspire personal stories with the environment, and to allow people to participate in these conversations of what desirable futures are about the planet that we are collectively shaping.

One of the scourges of the modern city are fatbergs. You know what I’m talking about. Or wait, maybe you don’t (which is why I did this project). The big blobs of coagulated fats, oils, and toiletries that get stuck in the sewers, making urban flooding even worse. In a congested city like Manila that already experiences super typhoons caused by climate change, this means that a few minutes of rain translates into a few inches of water on the streets. If you’re unlucky enough to be out of the house when this happens—and if you’re commuting—it turns into a nightmare.

This was the situation I found myself in one day as I was stuck in the rain in Manila. No taxi will take you (well, a few did, then promptly threw me out as the rainwater level went from foot to ankle deep), so I was left with one of the last options—a pedicab (a tricycle or a tuktuk in other countries). And as I sat inside, cold and miserable with the pedaling driver talking about charging me three times the price and my rage further heated up by global warming, the water rushed into the pedicab and I, hugging my knees in a fetal position, vowed to turn this into a project. 

People keep wondering about where I get my ideas for The Apocalypse Project and I tell them simply that on many days, I’ve already lived it.

Several months later, I finally have results whose journey transcended continents. In my not-so-recent residency in Medellin, Colombia, I was determined to scratch this creative itch and thankfully, a few phone calls later thanks to the Platohedro staff and boom, an engineer from Medellin’s EPM (the company that manages their sewers, or, ahem, alcantarillas) actually came over to the house and a few minutes later, I was looking into the sewers of Medellin.

I learned a lot about sewage and how different it is depending on the district. We were near a coffee factory and the sewage smelled like really old drip coffee and looked like it, too.

Interestingly, we could take readings about the sewage. This is a device that is supposed to check toxicity based on the particulates in the liquid.  

Medellin doesn’t get flooded the way Manila does. One reason for the latter’s epic floods is the dumping of used cooking oil down the sewer systems. Eventually the liquid saponifies and clogs the city’s arteries. In Medellin, I learned that most people actually recycle the oil. Also, the population in Medellin isn’t as much as Manila’s.

I also got to research the alternative sewers that people throw their waste in. In Medellin, that would be the Medellin River, which is so polluted you could smell it from a distance.

Back in Manila, it was interesting to compare the struggles of both cities. Manila and Medellin have similar histories and so it is fascinating to see their journeys to development. Medellin is a bit ahead of the game, winning the 2016 Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize and 2013 City of the Year Award, thanks to its urban planning. 

As I navigated through the neighborhoods of old Manila and Malate, I interviewed the managers of fast food chains on how they disposed of the cooking oil used to deep fry their chickens and fries, I was expecting to see hand wringing of we-don’t-know and why-are-you-even-asking, but it turns out, there are procedures that they do to conform to legislation set by the Department of Natural Resources. Their used oils are picked up by licensed agencies and people who recycle it for several purposes. 

And so I was left scratching my head. If these restaurants actually do dispose of their oils properly, who is responsible for all the clogging? One possibility is the smaller canteens that are unregulated, and another possibility are the households themselves. How do you dispose of the remaining 1 tablespoon of cooking oil in your frying pan, leftover peanut butter, or other fatty acids embedded in our lifestyles? Pouring it down the drain might seem simple and harmless, but imagine millions of citizens thinking the same thing. 

The project became an investigation on the journey of oil—the palm oil that is made from palm forests and used in households and commercial kitchens and end up in sewers or recycled. I researched the most common brands of cooking oil (palm oil was normally used), collected used cooking oil, and got grease from open pipes that were common in Manila. A few dozen saponification experiments later, I had several bars of soap for three types: palm oil (which needed too much caustic soda to saponify that I am actually suspecting of how pure it is, but that’s another story for another project), used palm oil (collected from restaurants), and sewer grease.

If you ever think of doing this yourself, well, kids, get your tetanus shots ready and make sure you’re suited up properly. Working with used cooking oil was always a surprise. The most information I could get was what food the oil was used to fry. They always came out different, and even though I used the same molds, there were some instances when the soap actually rose out of them. There were also times when the soap didn’t look that great, because it was mixed with so many things, including water.

Layers of different types of fat were in these soaps. There was something faintly geological about them, don’t you think?

I boiled the sewage before turning them into soaps to kill as much bacteria and pathogens as possible. (I would still use gloves to handle these, though.) It’s both disappointing and fascinating to see them so normal-looking.

I also placed them in airtight engraved containers for the 1335Mabini exhibition.

It’s so great to get this off my chest, and I’m looking forward to continuing the project and looking at it from other perspectives.

Research for this project was made possible by a residency at Platohedro and Casa Tres Patios, with support from Arts Collaboratory and the Ministry of Culture of Colombia.

Thanks to Mr. Hemel Serna of EPM and his team for giving me administrative support in researching Medellin’s sewer systems. 

Thanks to 1335Mabini for exhibition support.