Deep Time: Interview with Michel Varisco

Mississippi River Delta, Michel Varisco 2014 All images courtesy of the artist.

When we arrived at Michel Varisco’s home studio on a Saturday afternoon, the first thing that stood out was the front yard. It was wild, in an intentional way, and a beautiful patch of wildflowers in front of her gate was attracting a multitude of pollinators. After greeting us warmly at the door and making sure we were comfortable, she immediately began to recount her most recent trip on the river. “Just last week I was doing a canoe trip for the Easter holiday and camping out on the islands in the river, in the wilds of the Mississippi River. That’s how I regenerate, by going to nature. To gain strength for everything that’s going on right now. While we were out, I found this incredible nest. It was made of plastic, strips of plastics in all colors, on the outside. But the inside was soft, made of natural fibers from trees and things. It kept its shape so well, and would probably last forever. When I picked it up, it was already used and the birds were gone, so I put it in my canoe. It was so well designed. I lost it somehow, towards the end of trip. I really wish I had it now to show you.” As she shared the details of the nest, her hands kept making the shape of it, and even though she didn’t have it any longer, the image stuck with me throughout the interview. The rest of the afternoon was spent looking at and discussing her work that filled her living room, a testament to the countless hours she has spent exploring the connections between the natural and the manmade world. Michel’s work has a keen ability to imprint you with something beyond an understanding of what’s at stake or has already been lost on our coast; she’s tapped into a deeper current. There is a reminder here that one day, long from now, the river, the water, the land, will all still be here. It’s a reminder that if we are looking for something that needs saving, it’s most certainly ourselves. 

Your exhibition, Shifting, garnered a lot of attention from the global community. Can you tell us a little bit about it? 

I want people to feel a connection to the fact that we are losing land. Every decision we make affects how we are losing land. Everything we do, how we buy things, who we vote for, of course. I did a lot of talks when my show Shifting was up at the Ogden so I could explain what these things are in my photos. The straight cuts, jetties. The land should be forming here, but it’s dying on our end of the river. I wanted to show the difference between what good, healthy land look like and land loss looks like. I love looking at engineered landscapes and thinking about it. Considering our connection. The whole series migrates back and forth between being photographed from the land, the water, and the birds-eye view of both. 

You spent a lot of time documenting the land and water after the BP oil spill. What was that like for you?

 I fell in love with this land and water, even going out to the Gulf as a kid, but then after the oil spill, I had to start going out there for other reasons, to document this. It was traumatic. Moose oil, which is spilled oil that has come in contact with the sun, turns blood red as it moves through the gulf. It’s so surreal. I listen to the people up North getting all upset about having windmills on their horizon. I think, “Don’t you know we’ve been looking at oil rigs forever! Let the windmills be!”I’ve been really trying to get off my addiction to fossil fuels. I got wind power here at the house and bought a hybrid car. I’m proud to say I only spend $200 a year on gas. But then, I buy plastic, so you know, you can’t be perfect. It’s so entangled in everything we do. These are conversations that are hard to have. I think they are tricky. The weekend of the Jazz Fest, I remember it clearly, during the spill, you could smell the oil being burned off from the Gulf of Mexico 80 miles away from the fairgrounds. I mean, and this is Jazz Fest sponsored by Shell. I was so mad, I was wearing some T-shirt in protest. But I was there at the Fest. It was such a tricky time. When we were out there documenting the spill, they had put that dispersant in the water, and the person who was with me got really sick. I just got a migraine. There is so much fall out. I mean, there are of course the men that died out there, but then there are all of these other people who are affected, who are turning up sick. And then there is, of course, the actual land and creatures and microorganisms in the water. So I tried, with this work, to have conversations with New Orleanians about what this syndrome is we are suffering from, because we are killing ourselves. We have to change, we have to take steps away from this addiction to this stuff. We process these petrochemicals and products like herbicides, and send them north of here to use on farmlands, but then they come right back down the river, showing up in the watershed to  create the oxygen-depleted dead zone at the mouth of the river.

Your more recent body of work, Fluid States, seems to really focus in on the water more than land. Can you tell us about that? 

I’ve become more and more enamored with the Mississippi River. I see her as my beloved mother. This land is the newest land that she’s made in the last 7,000 years. I find myself being drawn into the water, and my work is now focusing on that, on the water.I’ve been fortunate to travel with the Shifting series, I was fortunate to go all over the world, to China, Venice, New Zealand, because of shows, or because of the invitations I was getting. People were shipping me all over the place. So I started photographing their water. I’m still working on it. In the water mosaic pieces for instance, there are small interlocking prints that show what water looks like all over the world. One of the things I’m studying is the life in the water. While I’ve been looking at the land loss, there is so much I’ve been learning about the microorganisms in the water itself. My major pivot artistically has been toward this, studying the life in the water that gives us so much. 

Tell us about your most recent project. It’s on the the Lafitte Greenway, right? 

Yes. What I’m working on, this sculpture, it’s really weird and totally divergent from my other work. But the common theme is the river. It’s these prayer wheels for the Mississippi River. It’s based on the maps of the river. It has three different versions of maps of the river from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. The first is the wild river. The second is during the plantation era, and the third is the petrochemical corridor river. Those plants are exactly overlayed to the same places where the plantations were. You see this contrast of 7,000 years of building versus 200 years of loss, and what that looks like. The idea is that you go and stand there and spin this wheel and hopefully think about the river, and maybe think about where we want to go. 

Do you feel an awakening to these issues right now?

I think everything hinges on the decisions we make together. For some reason, we’ve gone in this direction of the extreme edge, and it seems like we are taking that even further with this new administration. We are the canary in the goldmine here on the Mississippi. Everyone says that, but it’s real. If you take the long view, I think it helps. I honestly read these books on deep time to help me. I look at these other elements as entities, the river, rocks even. I went to the Petrified Forest the other day on my way home from the canoe trip, realizing that the some of the logs I saw in the Mississippi would one day too be fossils. And it’s ironic to me that these fossils comfort me, because, of course, {laughter} fossil fuels. I mean, even we will be fossils one day! But of course, by then, we won’t be using fossil fuels anymore!

When you travel abroad to show your work, to find that people view it as something foreign, something happening far away, or do they feel a sense of urgency as well, understanding the interconnectedness? 

Some of my video work is in a traveling film festival where the curator, Jennifer Heath, included video shorts from artists from around the world, all addressing water. And you couldn’t sit through those films without feeling connected to everyone’s struggle. As a planet, we are the sixth greatest mass extinction in the history of the planet, and this is the anthropogenic era. There is so much we need to do, to change, because we are enlightened in some corners and not in others.I think with the other countries I work with, and of course, us too, there is this issue with prosperity. So if a country is doing really well financially, they don’t want to look at these issues that they are contributing to. But unbridled capitalism is driving all of this, and that’s where we need to start the conversation. There are bright spots in this though. One thing that is hopeful to me is that the Netherlands has taken out twice as many leases for windmills on the East Coast than there have been for oil rigs down here on the Gulf Coast, so that’s an interesting dynamic.The most primal question that I want to express through my art is how do we live with nature, how do we live with it, respect it, how do we find balance? Unbridled capitalism is not the way to balance. I think maybe now, with even church leaders like the pope speaking to this, maybe things can change. Maybe people will start to ask how they are participating in this problem. If everyone would ask themselves this question, maybe we can shift. Not completely regain what we’ve lost, but change our path.On another hopeful note, after the oil spill, I was out on Raccoon Island in the gulf, and the biologist I was with saw this bird, and had me photograph it. “That’s a least tern, it’s going extinct!” It had this little tag on its ankle. I was so excited I saw one.But then on my river trip last week, I kept seeing least terns! It was Easter Sunday, and I saw all of these least tern nests, coming back. The trip leader said they are coming back and might even be taken off the endangered species list. So, when we put our attention and action on an issue, we can change things. We just have to pull back a little bit, use restraint, give that poor little bird a chance. 

How do you feel as an artist you are giving nuance to these issues that a biologist or other type of expert couldn’t?

I think artists can translate things by creating icons that will stay with people, or move them through their emotions. I have to be emotionally tied to what I’m working on. If I’m not emotionally tied, I don’t even waste my time. I want to touch people with this work. I think on a cellular level, artists are practicing the art of shamanism without even really knowing they are. I’m not saying that I’m a shaman, but I think that an artist has to be an illusionist on some level, but also have a message. One that we can pass on with the next person who sees it. You can’t alway know if it will translate, but sometimes it really does. I think it’s indicative of this very primal thing in humans where we are looking for symbols and signposts to help guide us. I mean, I’m creating prayer wheels right now. And magically, and I mean magically, these Tibetan monks got in touch with me because they wanted to put prayers for the river inside my wheels. I don’t necessarily understand how it happens, how change happens, but I do find it really encouraging that people seem more ready to talk, and hopefully, create change.