This session showcases the cross-sections between the natural world and the arts through a unique and creative lens.&nbsp;

Stormy, a Master Haida carver, muses in this short zen-like piece about making a canoe by hand on an island in Alaska.

STORMY

Stormy, a Master Haida carver, muses in this short zen-like piece about making a canoe by hand on an island in Alaska.

From slicing through rapids in a whitewater kayak to carving into a plate while printmaking, Alexandra “Chachi” Riesco draws lines between geologic forces and her work and play — but following her own line isn’t always easy. As Chachi navigates challenges, her art highlights the importance of our connections to nature.

Finding the Line

Whitewater kayaking, geology, and printmaking come together to influence Chachi Riesco's career as an artist.

On a mission to clean up Ohio's leaking, abandoned coal mines, Ohio University Art Professor John Sabrah teamed up with an engineer to develop a process that turns the toxic runoff pollution into paint. John's artwork has been shown worldwide, and proceeds have helped numerous environmental organizations and projects, including a new water treatment plant on the Sunday Creek Watershed. Co-Presented by <a href="https://mendofilm.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Mendocino Film Festival </a>

Toxic Art

Two college professors team up to clean up their polluted local river, building a circular economic model.

Michi Meko is a postmodern cartographer and artist who lives within the parallels and meridians of two distinct worlds . . . the Urban world and the Rural world. Michi is highly influenced by his surrounding urbanization and the disposability of humanity, culture, injustice and waste. He’s influenced by nature and wilderness and its ability to heal and inspire. As a fly fisherman and outdoor enthusiast, Michi found his place and voice in nature. His journey inspires a new mindset and possibilities for everyone, especially African Americans.&nbsp;“Being Black in the wilderness is an idea I’ve been trying to chase down or play with for a long time. I wrote a book of field notes, and took photographs, and made drawings. A lot of it was trying to hear my own voice and understand what that meant—to hear one’s own voice in wild spaces. What does a Black man sound like in the wilderness versus the voice of John Muir or Ernest Hemingway? “ -- Michi Meko

INWARD

As a Blackman in America, an artist transcends streets, wilderness, creativity, fly fishing, and conservation.

Glacier-fed alpine lakes each have a unique blue formed by the mountains and ice that shaped them. These intense colors hold the memory of “deep time,” geological processes millions of years old. Climate change rapidly accelerates environmental shifts, causing some of these spectacular blues to vanish.With stunning cinematography, the film immerses viewers in the magnificence of lakes so rare that most have never seen them, pulling us in so that we experience these bodies of water as if we were standing alone on their rocky shores—witnesses to their power and acutely aware of what their loss would mean, both for ourselves and for the Earth.Filmmaker Leanne Allison’s narration intimately balances J.B. MacKinnon’s eloquent science writing. This short documentary gently asks what it might mean to forget that the ethereal blues of these lakes ever existed.

Losing Blue

Losing Blue is a cinematic poem about what it means to lose the otherworldly blues of ancient mountain lakes, now fading due to climate change.

Can a picture contain all the beauty of a flower? This is what the narrator is looking for. To try to make it, she uses a revolutionary tool, artificial intelligence. Through the film, she creates a link with Mary Delany. Indeed, the flowers created 300 years ago by the English botanist are strangely in resonance with those made by the algorithms. Between technology and emotions, the film questions the limits of our gaze when faced with Al images. Co-Presented by <a href="https://www.newmediafilmfestival.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">New Media Film Festival </a>

Algorithms of Beauty

Can a picture contain all the beauty of a flower? Between technology and emotions, Algorithms of Beauty questions the limits of our gaze when faced with Al images.

The Great Salt Lake is often overlooked and misunderstood. Through her passion for wildlife photography, Mary Anne Karren unexpectedly fell in love with the lake's unique landscape and the 10 million birds that rely on it. She now uses her photography to bring attention to the lake's dire situation to save it. Co-Presented by <a href="https://www.cafilm.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">CAFILM</a> and <a href="https://www.doclands.com/2023-2/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Doclands</a>

The Beauty Between

A wildlife photographer tries to use the power of photography to save a dying lake.

Welcome to the world of PLSTC, an undersea dystopia that submerges you in the disturbing reality of plastic pollution in our oceans. Through a series of graphically confronting AI-generated and hand-composited images of ocean creatures, this experimental animated film confronts you with the devastating consequences of our habits on marine life, and leaves you gasping for breath.

PLSTC

You’ll never look at plastic in the same way.

With timelapse videography of rotting in action,&nbsp;Wrought&nbsp;creates an intimate, immersive world where decay can be beautiful, tender, and even surprisingly human.

Wrought

A visual exploration of decay begs questions about our relationships with other species.

Pripyat Horse is a tribute to Marianne Kuopanportti Fennell, who died far too young. It is a splinter from a project the filmmaker had worked on with Marianne for ten years, and also inspired by the famous quote:‘A sparrow flies swiftly in through one door of the hall, and out through another…. Even so, man appears on earth for a little while....’ (Bede, 673-735 AD.) The film is an expression of grief for one life lost.&nbsp;

Pripyat Horse

A moment for mourning, for a friend, and for the Earth.

Visually informed by the stark, impressive landscape of the Norwegian Lofoten region, this film looks at two individuals, a young man and a young woman, who both have a powerful relationship with the ocean.The young man Siddhartha is a traveling surfer searching for meaning and trying to understand what makes him the way he is. Drawn by the immense beauty and power of the ocean, he uses his surfboard to interact with something elemental and pure. This, in turn, affects his inner visions, and he begins to see how nature can fill in for some of the role models he might be missing.Linn is a local Norwegian sailor and fishes for a living. She takes pride in her family's traditions and ponders familiar myths about the ocean. She is driven to provide for her young children.The film presents darkness, fear, and extending past your comfort zone as something with inherent value. Something we can analyze and use in our understanding of ourselves. It aims to show how the characters are developing their relationship with these parts of themselves.

Siddhartha

The parallel story of a man and a woman deeply connected to the ocean.

United States of America

Art + Nature

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SYRCL's Wild & Scenic Film Festival, where activism gets inspired

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