Andrea Bowers: Exist, Flourish, Evolve 

Production | Exhibition Grant

LA-based artist Andrea Bowers’s new, multi-site, multimedia project, Exist, Flourish, Evolve, focuses on the need to protect and sustain Lake Erie and all the Great Lakes. Bowers created this artistic campaign with the Museum of Contemporary Art (moCa) Cleveland, activist Tish O’Dell, and the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), which seeks to protect the environment by establishing legal rights for nature. CELDF also works to shift Western cultural views of nature only as property to own and control for human benefit. Bowers is a passionate environmental activist who was raised in Northeast Ohio, in the small town of Huron, and spent her childhood on the shores of Lake Erie, connecting to the lake like a member of her family to be cared for, cherished, and protected. This project—the first large-scale presentation of her work in the region—is particularly meaningful given her personal connections to Lake Erie.

A key work in this project is a new, monumental neon sculpture installed on a waterfront, exterior balcony at Cleveland’s Great Lakes Science Center (GLSC), facing Lake Erie. With commission support from VIA Art Fund, the sculpture declares the right of Lake Erie to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve—words drawn from the Lake Erie Bill of Rights that CELDF drafted, and the voters of Toledo passed in 2019. Although this statement seems agreeable, in fact, destructive human actions and inactions seriously endanger all the Great Lakes. Alluring with bright colors and movement, the artwork obliges us to examine our role in damaging, repairing, protecting, partnering with, and ensuring the health of nature and specifically the world’s most important bodies of freshwater that we depend on for survival. Bowers created this light work with support from artist David Helton—designer of Cleveland’s famous WMMS radio station “The Buzzard” illustrations—and Doug Navalinsky of the Lorain, Ohio-based fabrication company, NavCour Glassware.

As an Ohio native, Bowers has a personal stake in the ecology of the region and the safety of its residents. This community embeddedness has allowed her to reach beyond the typical art-viewing public to create various programs and activities in partnership with moCa that inspire broad publics toward collective environmental justice. From the Maumee to the Cuyahoga, the works in Exist, Flourish, Evolve come together to share the histories of our water, demonstrate the interconnectedness of ourselves and our natural world, and remind us, as Dr. Vandana Shiva states, “nature is not out there; we are a part of it.”