https://www.colinlyons.ca/projects daily 1.0 2025-04-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5902ad9c6b8f5b69e90a5610/1493349235522-N73QE8FGOOM4XVZS32M3/30clyons2009fitzgeraldrig.jpg Projects https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5902ad9c6b8f5b69e90a5610/1493495667629-CI2CCFY81RKKAFRUTN5Y/168016clyons2014timemachineforabandonedfutures.jpg Projects https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5902ad9c6b8f5b69e90a5610/1493495703012-NK3FSEWJQ06WBAW2S7EM/168019clyons2013theconservator.jpg Projects https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5902ad9c6b8f5b69e90a5610/1493495737717-K60TCP1WRFNL680TOSU8/168024clyons2011automaticruin.jpg Projects https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5902ad9c6b8f5b69e90a5610/1493496009793-ONXZDSJRL54S5EU8KGYA/1680IMG_6289.jpg Projects https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5902ad9c6b8f5b69e90a5610/1493496036751-83277U2RFXM44ZWTDCG5/168003.jpg Projects https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5902ad9c6b8f5b69e90a5610/1493496057259-WO6TBLLF0TX273ZOBW80/1680.jpg Projects https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5902ad9c6b8f5b69e90a5610/1539394212690-1XR43KSN9SSRM1A3SZST/02.lyons_timemachineforabandonedfutures.jpg Projects https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5902ad9c6b8f5b69e90a5610/1539394477663-DMHU2QTWNNFTR9MT0E8W/lyons_new+monuments+2.jpg Projects https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5902ad9c6b8f5b69e90a5610/1539394535916-5ID5AMK9KUHFIW12SU20/06.lyons.jpg Projects https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5902ad9c6b8f5b69e90a5610/1669744585975-A20NYKP4TA53P2OLO5HA/Deep+Cut+large.jpg Projects https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5902ad9c6b8f5b69e90a5610/1673464208327-JGJR44WMNSBV8377TW56/01.habbakuk+still.jpg Projects https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5902ad9c6b8f5b69e90a5610/1624924688985-VSQAR2HK1VA73WQ4QMAY/laboratory02.jpg Projects The Laboratory of Everlasting Solutions (2021) The Laboratory of Everlasting Solutions is a print-based installation that proposes speculative climate prototypes that borrow from practical alchemy and contemporary geoengineering models. Much of the base material is drawn from brownfields, mine tailings and industrial ruins, dissolved to form a kind of alchemical prima material for my experiments. Over the course of the project’s lifespan, this evolving installation will weave together historic and speculative narratives ranging from proposed geo-engineering trials to desalinate arctic waters, soil phytoremediation via invasive plant species, and the fertilization of the coastal ecosystems using a slurry of dissolved industrial artifacts. However, instead of practical geoengineering prototypes, my techno-solutions offer little more than time capsules, laying bare the folly of our desire to find salvation in the fine balance of strategic chemical spills, and proposing rituals which blend the sacred and scientific to question what kind of nature we hope to approximate within a techno-solutionist future. The Laboratory of Everlasting Solutions was produced with the support of New York Foundation for the Arts, Harpur College, Rabbit Island Foundation, and Unison Arts Center. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5902ad9c6b8f5b69e90a5610/1673465564252-0Z916LM4P9W0C3TYR5AG/04.ratamo.jpg Projects We will find salvation in strategic chemical spills (2022) We will find salvation in strategic chemical spills considers recent climate-engineering proposals through the lens of alchemy. These prints borrow cloudscapes from 16th Century engraver/alchemist Hendrick Goltzius’ Metamorphoses, which depict atmosphere as solid and material, rather than a non-space; a vital concept in an age of rapidly rising atmospheric carbon levels. But here, the gods are replaced by geoengineering schemes - proposals to wash away the sins of the Anthropocene. Silkscreened over these etchings are materials such as crude oil, sulfuric acid, iron sulfate, olivine, sea salt, silica, and pyrite, which might play a role in future geoengineering technologies. Over the coming years, these images depicting congressional documents and volcanic eruptions will become increasingly visible, as the urgency to deploy these radical climate “solutions” intensifies. The technologies illustrated in these prints include speculative proposals such as a massive planetary sunshade, artificial icebergs formed by desalinating and re-freezing arctic waters, or the injection of reflective sulfur particles into the stratosphere, alongside more immediate concerns, such as an unsanctioned 2012 experiment near the coast of British Columbia, where 100 tons of iron sulfate were dumped into the Pacific Ocean. Etched into their plexiglas frames, and casting shadows onto the wall are descriptive technical texts written in Esperanto, pointing to the need for a new global governance structure for the coming era of global climate modification, when the key question might center on who has the right to experiment with the environment, when the burden of responsibility and the burden of impact are asymmetrical. Image: Installation view: We will find salvation in strategic chemical spills, Galleria Ratamo, Jyväskylä, Finland. We will find salvation in strategic chemical spills was produced at Frans Masereel Centrum, through the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5902ad9c6b8f5b69e90a5610/1625059357078-RZKMK8MY8A8AYF078NBQ/01.Lyons_+formgiving+forces+sharp.jpg Projects The formgiving forces enthroned on earth, while the growing metals make music in the cave (2019-2023) In 2019, I excavated these “float copper” fragments from the tailing piles of North America’s oldest copper mines in the Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan. Copper has been extracted from this region for nearly 9500 years, beginning only a short time after Lake Superior itself was formed from the receding ice. After scouring the tailing piles with a metal detector to locate rocks with trace amounts of copper, I ground and polished these mine tailings to expose the copper hidden within - creating naturally formed etching plates. Finally I etched into their surface engravings from Athanasius Kircher’s 1665 geological textbook Mundus Subterraneus, which took a critical stance on the practices of alchemists, while embracing their beliefs regarding the creation of metals and other geological formations within the natural world. Through these rituals, I situate the printmaking matrix as akin to a fossilized record, and seek to use the etching process to compress historical and geological time; connecting the threads of our legacy of extraction to the dystopian but perhaps inevitable climate-engineering solutions on our horizon. Image: The formgiving forces enthroned on earth, while the growing metals make music in the cave (sample no. 1), polished and etched float copper (excavated from Cliff Mine tailing piles, Keweenaw Peninsula), 2020. The formgiving forces enthroned on earth, while the growing metals make music in the cave was produced at Rabbit Island and Frans Masereel Centrum through the generous support of Canada Council for the Arts https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5902ad9c6b8f5b69e90a5610/1574358237416-OO8YQISGIHZMNWDR5ANJ/Lyons_14+Plots.jpg Projects 14 Plots (Spill File No. 0650898), (2019) 14 Plots (Spill File No. 0650898) is a site-specific installation which memorializes the environmental legacy of a brownfield site at 62-64 Scio Street in Rochester, NY. On August 31, 2006, an oil leak was discovered during the removal of a 2,000 gallon underground storage tank at the southeast corner this site. Over 30 tons of grossly contaminated soil was removed from the surrounding area, and 14 test borings (TB–1 to TB–14) were taken throughout the lot to assess the scale of contamination on the site. Remediation efforts have been conducted over the past decade, and the city of Rochester is currently soliciting proposals for redeveloping this land. Collected from the nearby Inner-Loop fill site, the surfaces of these fragments were meticulously polished using a traditional lithographic process called levigating, and then etched with the 2006 environmental contamination study reports. Each of these monuments were buried at the exact locations of the 14 sample plots - connecting these environmental data points to a very specific place and soil. Here, plot can be read two ways: as cold data points marking specific chemical compounds, or as something more bodily, like gravestones marking the chemical memory of the site. Radiating from the source of the original leak, the geography of these monuments tells the story of the land's contamination, at a time when it is considered for commercial speculation. Image detail: TB-9 (Installation View, 62-64 Scio Street), laser-etched granite, 2019. https://www.colinlyons.ca/bio daily 0.75 2024-11-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5902ad9c6b8f5b69e90a5610/1493353973775-2LC0RK5JJHYLBOFFSRCR/image-asset.jpeg Bio https://www.colinlyons.ca/pagecv daily 0.75 2025-10-24 https://www.colinlyons.ca/selected-texts daily 0.75 2023-09-17 https://www.colinlyons.ca/news daily 0.75 2025-11-20