TUCSON, AZ.- Blue Tears, an interdisciplinary installation of photographs by Patricia Carr Morgan, is on display through April 21, 2019 in the Green Gallery at The Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block. The installation includes sound, performance, and images, which are 17 x 10 feet printed on silk organza suspended from above. They are scheduled to drop to the floor throughout the exhibition until all have fallen, symbolizing the melting of the polar regions.

Taken during Morgan’s travels to Greenland and Antarctic between 2013 and 2017, her photographs shed light on the fragility and impermanency of the changing polar environment. Beyond the loss of glaciers and icebergs, Morgan draws attention to the wildlife that relies on these arctic environments to live.

“In Antarctica, I was overwhelmed by the scale of unending whiteness,” she said. “It was intimidating and dangerous, but it was also the most sublime piece of earth I had ever seen.

But the glaciers are melting into the ocean. There are crevices that open into their depth, and when they crack, they crash into the sea. First there is a swell, and then only a whisper as the ice floats away, disappearing into the warming water. Ultimately the krill will die, the penguins, the leopard seals. The humpback whales will become extinct.”

Curated by TMA’s Chief Curator Dr. Julie Sasse, the stark images communicate the grave impact traveling in the arctic had on Patricia Carr Morgan’s understanding of climate change. Her goal is for Blue Tears to travel the world to help spark more calls to action to stop global warming and save the endangered arctic regions.

For over three decades, Morgan’s work has invited audiences to engage with memory, notions of change, and ideas of the future.

She was born in the Midwest and cites her early exposure to film, nostalgia, mythology, and nature as ongoing resources for her creative process. She graduated from Humboldt State University in California with a degree in art history and has a MFA from University of Arizona. , Morgan has expanded her longtime interest in photography and how the lens can be used for storytelling that prompts a chilling awareness of beauty, love and loss.