After the Flood: Alison Ruttan’s Ceramics Translate Ecological Tragedy into Resonant Materiality

Earth is in a precarious state. According to a recent report by the World Meteorological Organization, the planet’s energy balance is seriously askew as global warming continues to heat the atmosphere, causing rising sea levels and extreme weather events at an unprecedented rate. That climate change is the direct result of human activity (or rather human disregard), is an implicit yet haunting undercurrent in Alison Ruttan’s The Paradox of Inaction, 2026, an impressive, site-specific installation that uses ceramic forms to restage a flooded suburban landscape within the Hyde Park Art Center’s 2,300-square-foot main gallery.

Based on Google Earth images of submerged homes in Port Arthur, Texas, which were engulfed by Hurricane Harvey in 2017, are more than 150 clay roofs that Ruttan cast to re-create the sloped and gabled summits visible in the aerial views of the devasting floodwaters. The bulk of these ceramic shelters—glazed in earthen browns, rusty oranges and reds, and muddy yellows, grays, and bronzes—are arranged in various groupings across nine low-rise platforms painted the same dark, murky green as the floor. (Fifteen rooftops are displayed on a wall near the Art Center’s entry, enabling a more detailed view of their varied surfaces.) One navigates the installation through multiple pathways configured to emulate a residential neighborhood underwater and with a downward gaze mimicking the elevated perspective of the artist’s digital sources. A ring of mildew simulated in black pigment encircles the gallery’s bottom perimeter, further enveloping viewers within the artist’s post-disaster tableau.

Full piece: