Losing Winter is a site-specific, participatory artwork and archive of memories and emotions about winter, revealing the personal and cultural ties we have to the season and providing a window onto what we are collectively losing due to climate change impacts on seasonal patterns. The project addresses the phenomenon of environmental amnesia, wherein with each new generation the changed or degraded state of the environment is perceived as normal, by preserving personal memories about the season as it was in the past in a particular location. The project is activated through the participation of local communities, site-specific exhibitions, and virtually through its dedicated augmented reality mobile application. Each iteration of the project is unique and site-specific. The Losing Winter app is the archive for the project and invites users to experience the memories of others through an augmented reality display. Holding up a mobile device, users see a shower of rain drops overlaid onto the scene in which they are standing. Tapping on the screen freezes drops of virtual water and tapping a second time enlarges a single drop, revealing a person frozen inside who begins to speak, telling you about their memory. As they complete their story, they disappear and the ice drop melts, turning back into water and falling out the bottom of the frame.
The Losing Winter app is currently available for free for iOS devices.
Media COVERAGE
Losing Winter featured on Connecticut Public Radio WNPR’s Where We Live: How the artist captures climate change, February 6, 2024.
Losing Winter and climate change, On the Record with Sheilah Kast, WYPR, November 9, 2021.
Baltimore Artist Lynn Cazabon Spotlights Climate Change in Exhibition ‘Losing Winter’, WJZ-TV, July 24, 2021.
Losing Winter: UMBC Magazine, April 23, 2021
Lead artist: Lynn Cazabon
Mobile app team: Lynn Cazabon, Marc Olano, David Iraheta, and UMBC Imaging Research Center.
The Losing Winter mobile app was made possible with financial support from the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund at Johns Hopkins University. Losing Winter has also received financial support from the Puffin Foundation, the Maryland Center for History and Culture, the Maryland State Arts Council, The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Romania, Smith College, Witte Rook, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
