Sound Installation by Dr. Douglas Tewksbury on Exhibit at the Sarasota Art Museum

Dr. Douglas Tewksbury, associate professor of communication and media studies at Niagara University, spent three weeks last October as a member of a unique expeditionary residency program called the Arctic Circle, which brought 30 artists to the remote Svalbard region of Norway to create works that engage with issues of environmentalism and the climate crisis.

A collaborative project inspired by this experience is currently on exhibit through October 2024 as part of the Skyway 2024 series at the Sarasota Art Museum in Florida.

"The Sound of Disappearance," a five-minute audio-video work Dr. Tewksbury created with fellow Arctic Circle residency alumnus and printmaker Eszter Sziksz, is part of "We Will Thrive or Melt Together," an installation that demonstrates both the beauty and fragility of our natural world and humans' place in it.

"I was extremely excited to be asked to develop this project by Eszter, who is not only a good friend, but also one of my favorite artists," Dr. Tewksbury said. "As a sound artist, getting to work with such a creative and talented visual artist is a pretty remarkable experience, and I think that the work we produce is really thrilling."

The work features Sziksz's time-lapse video of the melting of two blocks of ice and the image of a ship that has been screen printed on them. Tewksbury's accompanying sound art composition uses manipulated human voices that slowly change and degrade as the ice disintegrates, providing a haunting soundtrack to the creation, which demonstrates the urgency of climate changes.

"The climate crisis is perhaps our most pressing issue as a species," said Dr. Tewksbury. "I think it's important that artists and other folks in the environmental humanities are able to speak not only to what these things mean, but to what is at stake, and what our futures might possibly be."

"Skyway: A Contemporary Collaboration" is a joint triennial exhibition celebrating the diversity of artistic practices in the Tampa Bay region and showcased at five leading art institutions in that area.

A sound artist and researcher, Dr. Tewksbury's creative practice as a music and sound artist explores environmental themes through creative works, commonly using obsolete, antiquated, and often-broken media and electronic music and recording technologies. His 2024 collection "Floes: Volumes I-IV" was a collection of environmentally themed, long-form experimental works. His 2022 work "Brutes" manipulated and spliced human voices and choral performances on very long analog tape loops to create long-form compositions, while his 2021 album, "Paths," explored environmental themes through a suite of electronic, ambient, and piano works, and various field recordings.

He holds a Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University, a master's degree from Suffolk University, and a bachelor's degree from Vanderbilt University.

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