Adam Chodkzo: Rising

An Invisible Dust and Great North Run Culture commission

Rising is a new audio work created by artist Adam Chodzko specifically for fatigued runners to listen to directly after finishing the Great Northern Run on September 15 2013. It was co-commissioned by Invisible Dust - an organisation that brings together artists and scientists to create new works, and the Great North Run Culture, and was part of the 2013 British Science Festival in Newcastle. Chodzko worked in collaboration with Dr Claire Walsh; Researcher in Water Resources, School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at Newcastle University and Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. 

Connected to the ‘Toon Monsoon’, a freak event in June 2012 in which the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle was stuck by lightening and a months rain fell in one hour causing flash flooding across the city, the piece conjures an imagined future as the city prepares for the final evacuation before it is submerged in flood waters. They hypnotic piece addresses the reality and consequences of climate change. It is performed by actress Gretchen Egolf with sound by Tim Barker.

Rising was the first part of the research for ‘Invisible Heat’, an Invisible Dust programme about the effects of climate change on health, supported by the Wellcome Trust. Rising was also shown as part of Ways of Seeing Climate Change.

Rising is an Invisible Dust project curated by Alice Sharp, and was supported by the Great North Run Culture, the Wellcome Trust, Arts Council England, Newcastle University, basicFM, CIRCA projects, The British Science Festival 2013, The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.