Rachel Simmons
by Vanessa Barros Andrade
What is the reality of climate change ? What are ways to invoke or even evoke a dialog that is both important and easy to digest ? How do we bring these serious issues that seem almost impossible to fi x to an audience ’ s action-orientated attention ? Rachel Simmons , artist-educator and Professor ( at Rollins College ) sees “ visual art as the ideal vehicle to express the tensions between politics , culture and sustainability .”
I do feel like the artist is in direct contact with a very large audience . The audience gets to critique and form an opinion on the work . You can ’ t really critique and talk about the sciences in this way unless you ’ re studying science .
I sat down in an interview and studio visit with Simmons to talk about ecotourism , her Antartica series and the inner dialog of choice . We get into her creative process and the ways she formulates ideas to create new works . She creates art with a sense of self-awareness of harm to the environment in mind . Simmons wants to remind the audience , and herself , of the choices that we make in our everyday lives and how , maybe , the seemingly small things we do out of convenience can be changed to help the environment on a global level .
Did you grow up in Orlando ? I ended up in Orlando for college where I went to Rollins as an undergrad . Then I went to Louisiana State for grad school and then ended up back here at Rollins .
23 photo by Jason Fronczek
What did you study ? I was in the honors program here , which is a unique interdisciplinary program where we look thematically at global issues and then tackle them from multiple disciplines . For example , if we wanted to discuss the way the human brain functions , we would study that through psychology text , neuropsychology text , spiritual text , and anthropological text — then we ’ d get at the human brain from all of those different angles .
Were you always interested in environmental studies and climate change , or did that interest spark after grad school ? I think that my environmental awareness didn ’ t really develop until during the Iraq War . It was right around the time my husband and I decided to start a family , and we were thinking , What is it like to start a family when your country ’ s at war ? So , this was pretty much right after 9 / 11 . There were a lot of these new environmental movies coming out like , An Inconvenient Truth — and then Leonardo DiCaprio did a big blockbuster environmental fi lm , The 11th Hour . That environmental discussion was happening in the public .
We were also shifting from using this term “ global warming ” to “ climate change .” So , I started to become interested in the discussion around how we were talking about it and why we were talking about it . At the same time , I had these opportunities at Rollins to travel . I didn ’ t grow up with much money , so there wasn ’ t a lot of traveling in my younger years . Maybe traveling within the country , but not internationally .
Like to Antarctica ? Right ! When I had those opportunities , I started to travel specifi cally to places where ecotourism was , in some way , shaping their economy .
Define ecotourism . I need the audience to know the exact definition because I honestly had to look it up . Oh , yeah ! That would be , if you ’ re trying to develop some tourism in your area , and you want to pull people in because of the natural beauty of your area . The Grand Canyon is an example of ecotourism . Like national parks , where you go to see nature — you ’ re not going to New York City to see The Met . You ’ re going just to see the wilderness , or this idea of the wilderness . There ’ s this whole industry that ’ s grown around that . There are all kinds of ecotourism . There are coffee plants in Costa Rica where you can go and live for free as long as you work on the plantation . You can go on a luxury cruise and circumnavigate Antarctica . Those are two very different ends of ecotourism .
So there ’ s a spectrum ? There is a huge spectrum in the ways you can engage as an ecotourist . There are ethical dimensions to how you go about doing it and whether or not you ’ re leaving a huge carbon footprint . I ’ m not interested in judging if ecotourists are thinking about these things or not ; I ’ m interested in the idea of us thinking about that as we travel . It ’ s a little ironic going to a place that ’ s ecologically sensitive .
After looking at the didactic writing you have up on your site , I realized that there are elements of self-awareness in the Antarctica series . I initially read them as this type of activism where you ’ re critiquing society and excluding yourself , but what you ’ re actually doing is including yourself in the critique and the issues . Yeah ! We ’ re all included because we can ’ t escape it , really . Unless you ’ re going to go and live off the grid . We live in this system . I live in Orlando , I can ’ t not have a car . I could , but that would be a very purposeful choice for me . I ’ d be lucky enough to make it a purposeful choice and then I ’ d have to really work hard to make it happen in my life without one . So , there are certain systems in place that I can ’ t
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