Limnologies

April 11–May 4, 2025
ALY OGASIAN AND CLAUDIA O’STEEN

Limnologies is a large-scale installation and the culmination of two years of fieldwork on Rabbit Island in Lake Superior, where the artists lived and worked off-grid for two subsequent summers. Combining their research and work on the island with countless hours of studio and material experiments, the installation deeply explores the interplay of water, weather and geology. The title Limnologies refers to the artists’ varied and extensive attempts to observe and understand weather patterns occurring on the lake, ranging from systematic to absurd to poetic. Simultaneously, the project explores the effect of weather conditions and changing climate on human psychology.

The work utilizes documentation obsessively collected via a series of site-responsive, portable sculptures that function as observational mechanisms. The instruments poetically measure wind, waves, visibility, water level and temperature, exploring both the possibilities and limitations afforded by perceptual observation. The artists engaged with the sky as cinema, extensively documenting color and clouds, which revealed geographically distant wildfires. Through a series of interconnected systems, the work responds to weather conditions through the production of drawing and sound. It additionally exists as performance (via documentation), video, writing and installation.

Rabbit Island is located near the Midcontinental Rift System, a 1,200 mile long geological rift in the center of the North American continent, which formed 1.1 billion years ago when the continent began to split apart. The rift ultimately failed but left behind geologic evidence that points to a long history of global environmental change. The project touches upon the lake as a site of memory by examining how weather patterns have manifested across long spans of time. The work posits that, far from being static, geology is a dynamic, living entity that continues to shape and be shaped by changing climate. Scientific research into this region points to a series of entangled ecological systems whose complex interplay is difficult to comprehend and little understood.

Artist biographies

Aly Ogasian and Claudia O'Steen work collaboratively to produce multimedia, research-based installations. Their work incorporates sculpture, digital media, drawing, writing and photography. Their practice takes a flexible, idea-driven approach. Their projects always involve fieldwork, and the resulting installations incorporate artifacts and “data” collected from the landscape intself. The work focuses on their relationship with the changing environment, and uses methodologies borrowed from citizen science to critique traditional notions of exploration and conquest.

They have been awarded collaborative residencies at Marble House, Rabbit Island, Montalvo Arts Center, Maajaam Estonia, The Arctic Circle and NCCA Saint Petersburg, among others. Their work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. Aly received a BFA from Queen’s University and an MFA in Digital + Media from Rhode Island School of Design. She is based in Los Angeles and is an assistant professor at Scripps College. Claudia received a BFA from Watkins College of Art and an MFA in Digital + Media from Rhode Island School of Design. She resides in South Carolina and is an associate professor at Winthrop University.

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