Introduction

Fogo Island Arts and National Gallery of Canada present Liam Gillick’s A Variability Quantifier (aka The Fogo Island Red Weather Station), 2022. The project is a part of the NGC National Outreach Initiative.

Liam Gillick’s A Variability Quantifier (aka The Fogo Island Red Weather Station), 2022 is an artwork intended to function as an operational weather station on the island. It gathers local weather data and is a place for education, reflection, and discussion. The site and work are open for people to visit and use. The work will be displayed on the island through October 2026.

In response to the global climate emergency, Fogo Island Arts invited Liam Gillick to join artists and writers from 28 arts organizations across the world to form the World Weather Network, a ground-breaking constellation of ‘weather stations' located across the world in oceans, deserts, mountains, farmland, rainforests, observatories, lighthouses and cities.

With advice from partners in the local community, Liam Gillick developed his concept for a 2/3 scale model of a typical fishing stage structure, commonly found on Fogo Island. The structure is a framework for scientists and local community members to add meteorological instruments that are helpful in measuring and tracking local weather. Crucially, it helps to monitor changes connected to an increasing experience of the climate crisis. The island has a front row seat on the Labrador Current for observing changes to events such as the annual passage of icebergs in ‘Iceberg Alley’.

Fogo Island Arts (FIA) is a contemporary arts and ideas organization on Fogo Island, located in Newfoundland & Labrador, on traditional Mi’kmaw territory and the ancestral homeland of the Beothuk.