Art is a powerful thing, and experiencing it can fill us with a range of emotions. Art can incite joy or sorrow. Art can be funny or deeply disturbing. Art induces self-reflection, fosters thoughts about our connections to people and communities, and can even get us thinking about our place in the universe. Art can spark conversations, both frivolous and profound. Art can activate a space and create transformative moments that move us and change the way we think.
We were ecstatic when artist Silvia López Chavez accepted our invitation to create an ephemeral work of public art at Fenway Park for Action Pact 2022: Visualizing the Future. Silvia has managed to pique conversations with her work in so many public spaces. She has created murals at Twitter Boston, the United States Embassy in Beijing, MIT, Revere Beach, and the City of Chelsea. And that is just a sampling of her installations from the last year and a half! We were confident she could and would do the same with us at Fenway Park.
As she states in her bio, Silvia tries to make her work approachable and understood by diverse audiences. And, in this instance, she hit an absolute homerun. Using the image of the larger than life Boston legend and recent inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame, David “Big Papi” Ortiz, Silvia contextualized sea level rise in Boston in a way that is both brilliant and accessible. Viewers of the piece “get it” immediately…something isn’t normal here. Why is Big Papi submerged in water? Then the lightbulb goes off…2ft by 2070! Of course any Boston Red Sox fan knows that Ortiz could probably hit a game winning homerun while fully submerged in water, but the work sends a quick and powerful message about the effects of climate change and the potential for dramatic sea level rise in the City of Boston over time.
While installing the work over the course of two days, we had scores of interactions with fans, tourists, and local residents. One of my main jobs during an install is to answer as many questions as possible so that the artist can keep working. However, Silvia, who cares deeply about the environment and climate change, often stopped her artistic process to engage in rich conversations with onlookers.
Folks loved the work and had a lot to say.
We had a fascinating conversation with a father and his two young kids. Dad was a former Texas oil engineer who retired a few years ago when he became disheartened with the industry. He now lives locally and rode the family cargo bike to take the MBTA green line into Boston for a walk around Fenway Park. Silvia had a long conversation with him about reducing our carbon footprints and taking an active role in addressing climate change.
We met another family, visiting from New York; a designer for Tesla and a consultant that helps large corporations increase their sustainable business practices. They loved the simple and direct message the piece shared.
Other moments were of pure joy. A family visiting from the Dominican Republic came by when Silvia was away taking a quick break. They all screamed “Big Papi” in unison and posed for selfies in front of the piece. The group insisted on taking a photo with me even though I tried to communicate, in my very limited spanish, that I was not the artist. They didn’t care. They were all smiles regardless.
I had an extended conversation with a tourist from Australia who rode his bike from Newton in 95 degree heat. He was in town for a conference and wanted to see the city by bike. He went out of his way to thank us for making such a prominent statement at Fenway Park. He was also happy to share that Australia was beginning to get back on track with addressing climate change. I also met a local resident who wrote his thesis on climate change years ago. He greatly appreciated the Green Ribbon Commission’s (Action Pact’s main sponsor) work in raising climate change awareness.
During our first day of installation, a local construction worker stopped by and asked me about the mural. When I finished telling him about Silvia, her concept and the realities of sea level rise, he walked away saying, “Oh it’s a political piece.” I was surprised on our second day when he appeared again with a curious look on his face. “You said two feet by 2070, right?” He didn’t appear judgemental, just curious…perhaps pondering a future he hadn’t considered before. Did we change his mind, even just a little, I sure hope so.
Sea level rise support statement for Silvia López Chavez’s “Game On (GO)”
In Boston Harbor, relative sea level* (height of water relative to land) is rising twice as fast now as it did, on average, over the previous century. Not only is the pace increasing, but sea level rise in Boston is about 25% greater than the global average, due to dynamics of temperature, ocean, ice, and land. With so many factors involved, future sea level rise cannot be predicted with absolute precision; however, the trend toward higher water levels in Boston is certain. The recent report from UMass Boston, “Climate Change Impacts and Projections for the Greater Boston Area” (June 2022), projects that if humans continue to emit carbon into the atmosphere at the rate we are today, Boston Harbor could realistically see 2 feet, or 63 cm, of relative sea level rise by 2070.
*Relative Sea Level is the sea level that is observed with respect to a land-based reference frame (versus a measure of the total mass or volume of the oceans).