A metaphor for a sinking city…
There are two Venices in the world: One is the floating city in Italy, the other is the palm tree-lined California beach. An extraordinary world in flux where the moody tides of fact and fiction converge. It could either be a sunken Venice (Italy) or a washed-away Venice (California); in either case, its survivors are struggling to make use of their everyday lives.
As global warming causes ocean levels to rise and the melting of Antarctic ice sheets, a mysterious sinking civilization is unveiled. Inhabited by aquatic survivors and enchanting lost souls, it is a world without end. The sea extends and meets the sky in distance. Beneath the grey blue of the polar region, a powerful force is surging, and we witness a living depiction of global warming, with melting icebergs and a city being submerged into the ocean, exaggerating the smallness and insignificance of human beings in the face of an unforgiving nature. We human beings are just a punctuation mark of this long epic – tiny, but still a symbol of emotion.
The chosen composition emphasizes the role of nature gone awry and its effects on the inhabitants. It also encourages and almost forces viewers to approach the work at a close distance in order to view the minute survivors who range from the ordinary to the strangely surreal.
I firmly believe in the science that forecasts our impending journey towards catastrophe, and I’ve chosen to interpret the concept of this future scenario, depicting survivors braving waves and currents, the result of a future world where ocean tides will wash away the planet’s coastlines.
About Chris Anthony
I was born in Stockholm and lived there and in the United States until moving to Florence, for art history studies. My teens were spent as a rock photographer for music magazines around the world. After Florence, I returned to Stockholm for film studies and after a few years of apprenticeship I began directing various projects until finally returning to my first love, still photography. I currently live in Los Angeles of all places.
My work has been exhibited in several cities, and is included in many private and public collections worldwide. Publications that have featured my work include the Los Angeles Times, Photo District News, Eyemazing, Art News, American Photo, Blink, Paper, Fraction Magazine, Nylon, Black Book, Juxtapoz and Zoom. [Official Website]
