Designed as a site-specific trompe-l’oeil, the piece recreates the iconic architecture of the neighborhood it occupies – Boston’s Fort Point, which, in conjunction with neighboring Seaport, is now the wealthiest district in Boston. The wealthy contribute more to climate change than the non-wealthy, but will experience fewer of its consequences because of their greater access to resources. They’re also better positioned to fight against our climate crisis – when you’re living paycheck to paycheck, you have limited bandwidth for activities that don’t contribute to paying rent and putting food on the table. 

Most importantly, money is loud. Even if every individual chooses the most eco-friendly options available to them, it won’t be enough to halt the impending catastrophe. We need to make change on a societal scale, and in a capitalist society, those changes are more likely to occur if they’re backed by people with the power of money. 

This means supporting land-back initiatives (returning stolen land to Indigenous nations). It means curbing the behavior of a handful of massive corporations that put their profit above the survival of every being that lives on Earth. It means making a commitment to survival at the expense of status-quo comfort.

The name of the piece derives from the multiple polarities involved with the issue of water and climate change: the polarity of water molecules; the melting ice caps in the poles; the decrease of potable water versus the increase in flooding as sea levels rise; the ever-widening gap between rich and poor, in terms of their contributions to climate change versus the ability of each to survive and perhaps thrive as our world is permanently altered.