INVERNO: Gestures
for Rising Waters
multimedia expressions of environmental vulnerability and the hydraulics of memory
Inverno:
GESTURES for Rising Waters
Tom Pearson, 2026
Mixed media: Polaroid prints, printed cards, custom cardboard boxes, found artifacts, ecofacts, site-specific performance activations.
In this multimedia series of prompts and performance, Tom Pearson explores the intersection of environmental vulnerability and the fluidity of human memory. By framing the relationship as one of hydraulic force, Pearson maps the flooding of physical landscapes onto the dissolution of the self. It is a work-in-process where the process itself is the work, taking inspiration from Fluxus scores and prompts, and blending them with immersive scenario-building. Focused on climate related issues, winter dormancy, and tidal patterns of the Veneto, the work situates itself first within Venice during the Acqua alta (high water) and Carnevale seasons, where Tom was an artist-in-residence at the Emily Harvey Foundation in February and March, 2026.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
GESTURES for Rising Waters is an ongoing and iterative inquiry of Fluxus-inspired prompts, manu/script musings, and performance. My research within the acquapelago of the Venetian lagoon led me along the paths of the Barene (salt marshes) that form the natural barrier and flood control for the islands and supports the biodiversity and habitats of bird, plant, fish and other sea life which sustains the population. Ultimately, I aim to create a participatory work that takes a larger view of climate chaos and our relationship to water in a series of invitations, instructions, reveals, and activations that will welcome participants into themes of memory, environment, and activism. These prompts ask us to view ourselves as porous sites, complicit, responsible, and reshaped by the constant flux of the natural, built, and imaginative worlds. The work functions as a meditation and aqueous archive where memory is not a fixed monument but a tidal process, subject to the same currents of depletion and overflow as our natural ecosystems. When participants engage with these prompts and performances, agency and activation will be passed from the artist to the “audience” as the work manifests in both the conceptual and materiality of our co-creation.
