CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The artwork of printmaker Emmy Lingscheit, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign art professor, examines human entanglements with the environment, deep time and how social justice and ecological justice are intertwined.
Her lithographs, comics and zines include images of the changes in a landscape over millennia; displaced migrants, both human and animal; livestock and bees loose on a freeway after a traffic pileup; and the extraordinary spectacle of a solar eclipse.
The University YMCA is hosting an exhibition of Lingscheit’s work. “Contingencies: Navigating a World of Accelerating Change” will be on view until Oct. 3. Lingscheit will speak about her work at a reception on Sept. 11 at 5:30 p.m.
The exhibition focuses on work that speaks to change — climate change; social changes, such as instability in the economy, politics and public health; and how individuals and communities rely on one another, as well as on connections with various species, such as pollinators, for wellbeing. The title, “Contingencies,” refers to “anticipating, planning, being nimble, traveling light through time and trying to leave as small a footprint as possible while looking out for each other,” Lingscheit said.
She said she hopes her work calls attention to environmental justice and social justice issues, such as the way climate change is disrupting weather patterns and food supplies, and the way policy changes are altering the social fabric in terms of things such as public health.
“I feel an affinity with the printmaking history of artists engaging with those issues — social movements, lifting people out of poverty, oppression and discrimination, advocating for clean air and water,” she said. “I strive to be political in a subtle way. I want to draw people in with something that is visually lush and has a coded narrative for people of all ideologies. Maybe they see something that piques their curiosity in an image, and it shifts their viewpoint.”
Lingscheit had a residency in St. John’s, Newfoundland, last summer, where the coastal area and its long history of seafaring, fishing and oil industry production resulted in two prints that are in the exhibition. The central image in “Timepiece” is an iceberg, encapsulating thousands of years of ice. It hovers above a giant oil tanker at the bottom of the print, which is leaking oil upward.
The image shows an inverted timescale, moving upward from the oil tanker to a commercial fishing boat, a sailing ship from the golden age of exploration, a Viking ship and finally Indigenous canoes near the tip of the iceberg. It speaks to the intersections of time and culture and the consequences of our actions now on the legacy we leave for future generations, Lingscheit said.
The second print from the Newfoundland residency is “Boil,” featuring a recreation of the iconic wave from the woodblock print “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” by Japanese ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai. In Lingscheit’s print, the tentacles of a kraken-like creature are taking down an oil rig in a storm.
Lingscheit became a parent in 2023, and much of her recent work reflects a view through the lens of parenthood, she said. She created “Queer Reproduction,” a series of three prints, while she and her wife were going through fertility struggles. The prints draw on a variety of reproductive strategies of animals, plants and fungi that deviate from what is often presented as the heteronormative standard. In the background of the prints is portion of a Charles Darwin quote: “From so simple a beginning, endless forms.”
Two prints feature layered cross-sections of landscape. “Occupied Land” shows the Central Illinois region throughout time as the continents drifted, the landscapes changed, and various species evolved and died. “Longitudinal Study” maps major extinction events, including the Great Dying, when 90% of marine species and 70% of land species disappeared. The regenerative potential of the Earth over a very long timeline offers some comfort, Lingscheit said.
Her print “How to Travel to the Future” is part of artwork that portrays themes of subterranean ecosystems and timekeeping. The image shows catacombs with chambers filled with a person reading a book, bones and the artifacts of human culture, including a car, a toaster and a dust buster. Lingscheit said the print has a feeling of seeking home for rest and repair.
Her work has expanded to include comics and zines. When Lingscheit gave an assignment to her students to create something representing a moment of togetherness, she made a comic that describes traveling to Carbondale, Illinois, in 2017 to watch the total solar eclipse and the emotions she felt seeing it with a group of strangers.
Along with the comic book, the exhibition includes a carousel book, or circular book with an image on each panel, that Lingscheit made as an example for a bookmaking class project. The book shows hands in various positions making shadow puppets. The title, “Together in the Dark,” references solidarity and community during dark times, she said.
Editor’s note: To contact Emmy Lingscheit, email lingsche@illinois.edu.
