Lisa Hirmer | Everything We Have Done Is Weather Now
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University of Lethbridge Art Gallery 4401 University Drive, W600, Centre for the Arts, Lethbridge, Alberta T1K 3M4
Lisa Hirmer, "We Are Atmosphere (cropped)," 2021.
Image: Lisa Hirmer, 2021.
Reception: Thursday, January 19, 3 – 6 pm
In Everything We Have Done Is Weather Now Lisa Hirmer’s gorgeous photographs of weather data bridge the divide between everyday conversations about weather and the enormity of the climate crisis, thereby helping to open up possibilities for imagining different futures for our planet.
Talking about the weather used to just be a banal topic for conversation, a perennial and innocuous backdrop to everyday life. But with the climate emergency looming ever bigger, this is no longer the case. The weather is now something much more complicated, something at once an everyday experience and a harbinger of a new planet-scaled reality that is hard to comprehend. In this exhibition, Guelph-based artist Lisa Hirmer shifts the focus on weather to the day-to-day with her gorgeous photographs of weather data, such as historical handwritten weather records and snow levels in test tubes that depict declining snowfall in her region. The beauty of the images draws viewers in, piques their curiosity, and opens up a route around the impasse on climate crisis and towards relating to our environment.