An Ecosystem Under Threat

This series of charcoal drawings explores the breakdown of kelp forest ecosystems along the coast of Northern California, principally as a result of warming oceans and over-harvesting. The project asks the viewer to take a closer, stranger, more intimate look at some of the key non-human actors affecting and affected by this dramatic ecological transformation. It explores the idea that before we can steward with integrity and wisdom we first need to enter into an intimate, non-judgmental, witnessing relationship with the space and entities we are working with.

Since 2014 more than 90% of the kelp along the Northern California coast has disappeared. This is just one instance of a phenomenon that is occurring globally. We are losing kelp forests four times faster than rainforests. Kelp forests perform essential ecosystem functions not only through carbon sequestration but also by providing habitat for a diverse ecosystem of species. In Northern California the decline in kelp forests resulted from a complex interaction of ecological events. In 2013 a disease known as sea star wasting hit sea star populations up and down the West Coast, wiping out their populations. Its spread has been linked to climate change-driven warming ocean temperatures. Sunflower sea stars (Pycnpodia helianthoides), the top urchin predator, was hit particularly hard and are now locally extinct.

The absence of sea stars had a two-pronged effect on urchins, their primary prey. Fewer predators meant that urchin populations began to grow. The urchins also began to change their feeding patterns. Where they had previously stayed hidden and safe in crevices, waiting for their food – scraps of kelp – to float by, they were now leaving those crevices actively in search of growing kelp. Adding to this, in 2014–15, a mass of warm ocean water known as the “blob” (which some scientists have linked to climate change) formed in the Gulf of Alaska and began moving south, affecting the entire West Coast. It short-circuited the yearly upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water which in turn stunted kelp growth. This also meant that scraps of kelp were no longer circulating to the urchins in their crevices further encouraging the hungry urchins to wander out in search of the remaining kelp.

Abalone, the area’s iconic sea snails, which also rely on kelp for food were beginning to starve. Already suffering from decades of human over-harvesting, the abalone fishery was finally closed in 2018 to protect what remained of the population. Along the South Coast of California, sea otters who feed on urchin have helped maintain stands of kelp forests by keeping urchin populations in check. Along the Northern Coast however, sea otters have not been seen since the early 1800s when fur trappers decimated the population.

This cascade of events has caused what ecologists call a shift in alternative stable states, where the kelp forests have become urchin barrens. These barrens are spreading throughout the world and have proven to be very stable.

Tanja Geis holds an MFA in Art Practice from University of California Berkeley, an MRM in Marine Management from the University of Akureyri, Iceland, and a BA in Fine Art from Yale University.

‘I make research-based paintings, drawings, sculpture and videos that explore how creating intimate relationships with human-disturbed edge ecosystems/spaces, such as intertidal zones, mudflats and sidewalks, can shift our ecological perception. Influenced by my past work in natural resource management, my practice explores the profound material and psychological entanglement of the human and non-human, labours towards a radical acceptance of this complexity and begins to imagine a new eco-relational ethic. My projects begin with extensive time spent researching and physically engaging with a place or species. The experiences, materials, artefacts, and imagery I collect during this process guide my creative trajectory and comprise the raw material for my work. In the studio these collections are transfigured physically and representationally into resonant mediums, symbols and ciphers, often referencing ritual patterns and anthropomorphic/zoomorphic forms. Re-envisioning these ecologies as unstable, mongrel, collective and adaptive entities helps me imagine how we might earn their grace.’

Geis’ work has been exhibited at the Berkeley Art Museum, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, and galleries in Iceland, Scotland, England, Hong Kong and Japan. She co-founded Wildfjords Artist Residency in Iceland and has taught at University of California Berkeley.