The beginnings of Amy Balkin’s A People’s Archive of Sinking and Melting project go back to 2011, when the artist was invited to Texas for a project called Carbon 13. It was organised by filmmaker David Buckland and Cape Farewell, an independent British cultural organisation, that takes artists and people involved in cultural practices to places impacted by climate change, in an attempt to notice and record their reflections. “I went to the Arctic with the team, and I proposed the idea of this project after working with climate change and studying its economics and politics. I was interested in creating an archive, but also thinking about the futures we can look towards,” says the American artist, whose work combines cross-disciplinary research centred around how humans create, interact with, and impact the social and material landscapes they inhabit. 

This VHS video box was salvaged by artist Tyler Henry from his basement studio at Smack Mellon, an arts organisation on Brooklyn’s waterfront. His studio there was severely damaged by seven feet of floodwater during Superstorm Sandy in 2012