The art
Salt Ponds have existed in the San Francisco Bay since the 1800s and are characterized by environmentalists as having taken away the lungs of the Bay. Over the last twelve years, I have deepened my exploration of this constantly evolving subject by adjusting my perspective and photographing from the air, the ground and beneath the water with a macro lens. These images are a visual representation of the ongoing efforts to restore wetlands and bring back the natural biodiversity of the Bay. My ultimate goal in the creation of this work is to raise awareness about the miraculous power of nature to regenerate and renew, as well as the crucial need to preserve our natural spaces.
I started going up in a helicopter to take aerial photographs of the Salt Ponds in 2010 and have continued for over a decade. These images reveal human incursions in the landscape resulting in complex geometries and artifacts due to the limited biodiversity. This is evidenced by the apocalyptic oranges, reds and purples where only two organisms can survive in this man-made, high salinity environment: anaerobic algae that produce carotenoids and a brine shrimp species unique to the San Francisco Bay. After several years of taking these aerial photographs, I had thousands of images and I began creating formal grids based on the year they were photographed and a common color palette. Areas of the Bay that have already been restored back to natural wetlands show increased biodiversity with a green color palette. To date I have ten grids that reflect different stages of the progression of the restoration.
The artist
Barbara Boissevain is a visual artist and photographer who focuses on the impact of
environmental change and its effects on humans and other species.
Boissevain studied painting at Parsons School of Design in New York, and then went
on to receive her B.F.A in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute and an
M.F.A. in Photography at San Jose State University.
She has exhibited her work widely, including international solo and group exhibitions in
the USA and Europe. These include: Memoire De L'Avenir, Paris, France; the Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA; Galerie Numero Cinq, Arles, France; the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland; and the David Brower Institute in Berkeley, CA. In 2009 she published “Children of the Rainbow,” a book and traveling exhibition that documents humanitarian problems due to climate change, facing Quechua communities in Peru.
In 2021 her work was featured on NPR’s “The Picture Show” (in conjunction with the
U.N. Climate Change Summit in Glasgow, Scotland) as well as on the PBS News show “Something Beautiful.”
Her art has been acquired by numerous public and private collections around the world, including the Google corporate collection. From 2014 to 2021, she was an artist in residence with the City of Palo Alto’s Cubberley Artist Studio Program in Palo Alto, California. In 2018 she was awarded an artist-in-residence in France at Galerie Huit
in Arles, France in conjunction with the Les Rencontres de la Photographie Festival.
In July of 2022 she was invited to Atelier 11 for a solo residency through L’AiR Arts international residency program in Paris, France.
Her book “Salt of the Earth” was published by Kehrer Verlag in the Fall of 2023.