2 Artists Highlight Oceans In Crisis During USF Museum Exhibits

TAMPA, FL — The USF Contemporary Art Museum is bringing attention to the world's threatened ecosystems with two solo exhibits

The USF Contemporary Art Museum, part of the USF Institute for Research in Art in the College of The Arts, 3821 USF Holly Drive, is hosting "Sponge Exchange" with artist and educator Hope Ginsburg and "FloodZone" with artist Anastasia Samoylova.

These exhibitions document vulnerable and threatened environments both above and below the sea’s surface, alerting viewers to the critical issues surrounding the climate crisis, rising temperatures and sea levels, and water quality.

"Sponge Exchange" expands artist Hope Ginsburg’s work with ecology with two new video and sculpture installations. "Swirling," a four-channel video created in collaboration with diver/videographer Matt Flowers and composer Joshua Quarles, and produced with support of the Wexner Center for the Arts Film/Video Studio Program, submerges viewers in the underwater coral nurseries and outplant sites of St. Croix, capturing the often-unseen coral farming and reef restoration work that occurs beneath the surface.

The exhibition also features a series of dioramas inspired by the educational dioramas of Tarpon Springs’ Spongeorama Museum. Created in collaboration with USF School of Art and Art History students during a fall semester class co-taught by Ginsburg and USF associate professor John Byrd, the three-dimensional dioramas examine issues marine species are facing due to the effects of the climate crisis.

Archival materials and ephemera from Ginsburg’s decade-long exploration of the sea sponge will also be on view. "Sponge Exchange" is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts Art Works grant and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

FloodZone, the first solo museum exhibition of Miami-based artist Anastasia Samoylova, presents a new installation of an ongoing photographic series, reflecting the impacts of sea level rise in South Florida.

Highlighting the friction between natural and constructed landscapes by focusing on the relationship among environmentalism, consumerism and the picturesque, Samoylova’s images bring to the surface the seductive and destructive dissonance between the saturation of the real estate industry’s marketing images of a tropical paradise offering water views, while properties and streets are regularly flooded.

"FloodZone" captures the precarious psychological state of living in a paradise sinking toward catastrophe, while revealing the role photography plays in obscuring reality and crafting perception. "FloodZone" is supported by Oolite Arts and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Join Samoylova and David Campany for a talk and book signing of "FloodZone" Jan. 26 at 11 a.m. at Oxford Exchange, 420 W. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa.