Solar Re-Location
A mixed media sculptural installation created in collaboration with Yousif Alzayed (SAIC MFA, ‘24) for the Sweet Home Chicago exhibition at the Bridgeport Art Center July 21-September 1
Solar Re-Location (2023) illuminates the disparity in per-household contribution to climate change between a city’s dense urban core and its less densely populated suburbs and exurbs. Namely, the work demonstrates that residents in the city tend to be responsible for far fewer climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions than residents in its suburbs and exurbs (in the case of exurb vs. urban core, the disparity is nearly 50%)! The work suggests that solutions to climate change should consider an increase in green investments in the city and a reduction in inefficient suburban sprawl. The work overlays a comparative study of the total carbon dioxide emissions per household across the greater Chicago area (averaged and binned into 3 distinct groupings, “urban core”, “suburbs”, and “exurbs”) as a projection onto an array of discarded solar panel waste, in an effort to engage a discussion on the potentiality of solar as both a solution and a limitation for solving the climate crisis. For more information about the data used in this study, which is copyrighted by the University of California and was modified by Dr. Tosca for the purpose of this work see image below:
The projection used in the space discarded the colored segments in the original image in favor of a white/gray/black gradient (see below). This was done to accent the disparity in contributions to climate change between the dense urban core and the sparsely populated exurbs. It ensured that the solar panels in the urban core received bright white light and the solar panels in the far exurbs received only dimmed dark gray light which hindered their ability to function at 100%:
