Three violinists circle the gallery space, each representing an element within a 17th century seascape painting by Julius Porcellis. Every rotation of the room symbolises decades passing, between the year 1630—when the painting was created—and 2130. Across 500 years the violinists play out a scenario in which humanity faces rising sea levels and loss of habitable land.
We open the performance in 1630 and progress through the Industrial Revolution and increasingly severe ecological damage to a 3°C future which could see a global rise in sea level of over 1 metre.
One violinist plays The Sea; one, The Land; one, The Boat. The artist’s role is that of conductor. The music—an early 1600s canto by Friderici—changes in response to sea level data.
The Sea adds notes, The Land subtracts, The Boat speaks for us, humanity.
500 Years is formed of two connected artworks: one, a performance, the other a painting; both presented at Christie’s, London, in December 2023 – during the time of COP28. In the weeks preceding these events, we learned that our planet is on track for almost 3°C of average temperature rise. This performance used music to imagine sea level rise across five centuries – as a result of global warming – from pre-industrial times to a 3°C future. Devised by Cass and featuring violinists Aisling O’Dea, Emma Purslow & Anita Vedres (top banner image), the performance formed part of Christie’s Lates programme Old Masters, New Era.
The accompanying exhibition, curated by Artphilia, channeled through paint what the performance did through sound. A painting by Cass – also titled 500 Years – acted as a counterpoint to Julius Porcellis’s c.1630 seascape Ships in Distress off a Rocky Coast, visualising the Dutch Master’s work 500 years on, in a world where climate breakdown has heightened the severity of storm surges and dramatically altered our oceans.
In the below video, note the level of the waterline in two further paintings on display within the gallery during the performance – of Venice's Grand Canal by Canaletto – which emphasise the urgency of this issue.
The painting 500 Years was subsequently exhibited at The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, from August – September 2024. A film of the performance is currently being screened at COP29 as part of ArtSpeaksOut.
