Semaphores

Chris Wainwright’s ‘Semaphores’ is a series of artworks focusing on the aftermath of the great Japanese earthquake and Tsunami of 2011, including a performance entitled ‘What Has To be Done’ that develops the environmental focus towards the effects and concerns around nuclear power. These works, made in response to the earthquake and tsunami, were the basis for Wainwright's ‘A Catalogue of Errors’ exhibition at the Daiwa Foundation in 2013. Other exhibitions of these artworks have included ‘Rising and Falling – Only Time Will Tell’, an installation at Suzaku Gate Plaza for the Festival of 1,000 Candles (the 1,300th Anniversary of Nara Heijo-kyo) and a monumental sculptural installation, ‘Accidents Will Happen’, at KUANDU Art Museum, Taipei, 2013. Wainwright’s ‘Semaphores’ are part of a continuing enquiry into the language of semaphore, in particular the semaphore symbol for Error, and how this could be applied to visual representation in areas that highlighted the dramatic effects of climate change. The semaphore works were first developed when Wainwright was invited to participate in two arctic art and science expeditions. The first was an invitation from Cape Farewell to Greenland in 2008. Other invited artists on that expedition included Laurie Anderson, Ryuchi Sakamoto, Jarvis Cocker, Robyn Hitchcock, and scientist Simon Boxall. Wainwright was then invited on a second expedition to Svalbard in 2011 by Tyrone Martinsson, researcher in Photography at the University of Gothenburg, along with the artists Sophie Calle and Joan Fontcuberta and the writer Rebecca Solnit. The expedition was funded by the Swedish government and the Hasselblad Foundation.