Time is a curious thing here, in this land where humans have lived for ten thousand years and geological forces have shaped it for millennia before that. Time is a difficult concept to grasp, to begin with, and when we bring in the conversation of climate change, it becomes even more unfathomable.
Which environmental changes are simply flukes, and which are longer, significant trends? How can we know? How can we be sure? It seems the only way TO know is to look at things in terms of time, to compare the present to the past. And herein lies the very heart of Science and Memory: Both science AND memory are vital to our understandings of time and the changes that we are seeing.
Science lends us the numbers, data, and documentation. Memory lends us the traditional ecological knowledge that goes back farther than science can reach, and tells the larger story that the numbers and data cannot convey. Science gives us information, memory gives us context. Science provides the evidence, memory paints the picture.
Timelapse photography has always fascinated me, and so one of my goals this summer is to work on perfecting the technique. With every timelapse I take, I am surprised by what it brings out, revealing things that we would never notice otherwise, in our normal experience of time progression. The spiraling way a gull swims in the water, how the oystercatchers run along the beach, the way the trees shimmer in the wind when morning sunlight falls upon their leaves, or how the clouds cloak the mountains in such tender a way. When we speed up time we can see these things, and yet in our normal lives it is nearly impossible, unless we sit somewhere long enough and just watch.
The great irony of climate change is that even though it’s nearly imperceptible on our human timescale, we must think beyond timescales in order to respond to it. If we could take a timelapse of our entire human history, perhaps it would seem more tangible and we could all – myself included – better understand the urgency to change the societal infrastructures that continue to accelerate disruption to our climate.
Until then, I suppose I will have to satisfy myself with capturing the smaller pieces of beauty and magic found in our world, appreciating what we have, and what we are fighting to save.
Andrea Willingham 07.09.2016
