Transitional ecosystems are sites of intense biological productivity. Where the sea meets the land we find nurseries for marine life, water quality regulation, carbon sequestration, and protections against flooding and coastal erosion. Unsurprisingly, salt marshes and the irreplaceable roles they play in the global biosphere are imperiled by human activities like land development, pollution, and climate change.
It can be hard to truly see or feel these changes for most. Even now as the effects of a rapidly changing and destabilizing climate invade everyday life for us all, it can be an incredibly distant and abstract affair. To create a felt sense of this, I called on topsy-turvy, end-times imagery. Things are wrong, natural systems are upset, the colors are sickly greens, yellows, and purples—the colors of disease.
