By Abbas Nazil
The artwork of Emmy Lingscheit, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Art professor and printmaker, is being showcased at the University YMCA in an exhibition titled Contingencies: Navigating a World of Accelerating Change, on view until October 3.
Her work explores human entanglements with the environment, the passage of deep time, and the intersections of social and ecological justice.
Through lithographs, comics, and zines, Lingscheit examines themes such as climate change, migration, extinction, and the role of communities and species in sustaining one another.
The exhibition highlights the idea of “contingencies,” which she describes as anticipating and adapting to change, traveling light, minimizing environmental footprints, and caring for one another.
Among her pieces is Timepiece, created during a residency in Newfoundland, which features an iceberg floating above a leaking oil tanker.
The inverted timescale traces human history through ships, from modern tankers to Indigenous canoes, symbolizing how present actions affect future legacies.
Another work, Boil, reinterprets Hokusai’s iconic wave with a kraken destroying an oil rig, reflecting the collision between nature and industry.
Her personal experiences also inform her art.
The Queer Reproduction series, created during fertility struggles with her wife, illustrates diverse reproductive strategies in animals, plants, and fungi, challenging heteronormative standards while emphasizing Darwin’s phrase “endless forms.”
Other works, such as Occupied Land and Longitudinal Study, layer cross-sections of landscapes to depict continental shifts, extinctions, and the regenerative capacity of the Earth over millennia.
Pieces like How to Travel to the Future delve into subterranean ecosystems and artifacts of human culture, portraying themes of rest and resilience.
Her comics, including Together in the Dark, depict solidarity and community, with imagery inspired by the 2017 solar eclipse.
Lingscheit said she strives to make art that is politically subtle yet visually engaging, drawing viewers into narratives about climate change, social justice, and environmental stewardship.
