Norwood Viviano, American, born 1972
Cities Underwater, 2018
In Cities Underwater, Norwood Viviano visualizes the loss of land mass due to sea level rise predicted to occur over the next 500 years in sixteen U.S. cities: Boston, Galveston, Miami Beach, Miami, Mobile, New Orleans, Newark, New York, Norfolk, Philadelphia, Sacramento, San Francisco, Savannah, Seattle, St. Petersburg and Tacoma. Using existing LiDAR data and scientific projections, Viviano crafts an interior sculpture where contours in the glass represent the likely reduction of land in a certain year. These projectile forms are inserted into glass cylinders proportional to the current land area of the featured city. Made in colors ranging from marine blue to seafoam green, we can imagine the vessels filled with water surrounding what remains of the cityscape in 2500 CE. Viviano’s work encourages viewers to think of these coastal cities as organic, fluctuating landscapes that also impact the population and economic vitality of 127,000,000 Americans that call these coastal areas home. Label by Kelly Conway