BFA Senior Exhibition Show

FADING ROOTS

Wetlands, anchored by cypress trees, serve as the lifeblood for entire ecosystems, sustaining thousands of species filtering drinking water, storing more carbon than forests, and shielding communities from storms. Yet these landscapes are vanishing—felled for timber, drowned by climate change, and suffocated by corporate exploitation. As cypress trees disappear and wetlands unravel, waters grow toxic and thousands of endemic species are displaced. 

Research shows that every 2.7 miles of wetlands can reduce storm surge by one foot, acting as a natural barrier against floods. When these landscapes disappear, hurricanes strike harder, floodwaters rise higher, and destruction spreads further. The U.S. Geological Survey reported in 2024 that over half of the wetlands in the contiguous United States have already been lost—drained, cleared, and erased in the name of progress. Louisiana alone loses a football field of wetlands every 100 minutes, erasing natural defenses at an alarming rate. Without intervention, disasters like Katrina will no longer be generational tragedies but annual certainties. 

Fading Roots examines this erasure, layering quiet landscapes with historic, present, and projected future maps of wetland loss, interwoven with excerpts from naturalists Charles Darwin and Eugene Odum. These embedded maps and texts visualize the fragility of these vanishing environments. If this trajectory continues, it's estimated that over 1.34 million acres of wetlands in the southern United States will disappear within the next 20 years.

We must listen to the land and answer with action.