The Current That Connects Us

At first it didn’t register. There, with sheep grazing on the shamrock green slopes of southwestern Ireland in the background, stood a palm tree. Doing a mental double take, I thought, how is a palm tree surviving so far north? Looking into it, I learned that the cabbage palm (Cordyline australis) is a species of palm-like tree native to New Zealand. Introduced in the 19^th century, it survives at a latitude that should be too cold thanks to the Gulf Stream, a warm ocean current originating in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. Flowing north at 7.2 kilometres per hour (4.47mph), it skirts eastern North America before crossing the Atlantic, passing the United Kingdom and dissipating in Scandinavian waters.   

Now, climate change is posing a risk to the Gulf Stream and possibly to the mild climate of the UK and all of Europe. Scientists are warning of a breakdown in the set of interconnected ocean currents known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), including the Gulf Stream, which carries warm, salty waters north until it cools and sinks. Melting Arctic ice sheets add fresh water, which hinders the Gulf Stream from sinking, thus disrupting the AMOC cycle. Scientists disagree about the timeline and scale of change the Gulf Stream might see, but they agree that impacts could include higher sea levels, disrupted ecosystems, lower levels of carbon sequestration, and alarmingly cooler, dryer weather in Europe.

In the Canadian east coast town of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, three artists are raising awareness about the Gulf Stream and the threats it faces. Laurie Swim, a visual artist who uses textiles as her medium, led the creation of “The Blue Ribbon: The Current that Connects Us — the Gulf Stream,” a summer-long exhibit at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic, opening on June 1, 2025, and running through October 15, 2025.  

Best known for her exquisitely detailed narrative quilt art, Swim has commemorated major events such as the 1917 Halifax Explosion, the 1960 Hogg’s Hollow disaster in Toronto, and the 1961 storm that killed 17 fishermen from her hometown of Lockeport, Nova Scotia, in her art. Today, she runs an art gallery in Lunenburg, a historic fishing town with UNESCO status.

In 2019, she participated in a group chat with Norwegian sculptor Harald Oredam, whom she’s known for 50 years. He’d gathered a loose collective of artists to discuss the Gulf Stream. 

“I was just curious about what the Gulf Stream gave us,” Swim says. “I knew the Arctic was melting, but I didn’t know the consequence.” During the chat, Swim and Ingrid Larssen, a Norwegian textile artist, made a strong connection. The concept for Blue Ribbon was born.

In what Swim describes as a leap of faith because the two had never met in person, she spent a couple of weeks with Larssen in 2022 at her home on a Norwegian island, hiking the dramatic landscape, making art, and swapping techniques and tips. 

“She was smocking [stitching in a honeycomb pattern] these exquisite little neck pieces, designs you’ve seen on girls’ dresses,” Swim says. “She did an installation using heavy felted smocked wool. There were sea shells and sea urchins in the smock pockets, natural dyed using seaweed and tansy.”

Swim invited a third textile artist, Jane Whitten, to join Blue Ribbon. Based on Whitten’s work using seaweed and found materials like plastic waste, Swim knew she would be a great fit.

In the spring of 2024, the three artists met in Lunenburg, Larssen traveling on a grant to study with Whitten, who had developed a non-toxic technique for preserving kelp to use as an art medium, a technique she has shared only with Larssen. The two scoured Nova Scotia beaches for kelp and worked together on Prince Edward Island, using it to create original artwork such as baskets. The cross pollination will continue in the fall of 2025 when Whitten will travel to Berlevag, an isolated Norwegian village of 880, to work with Larssen as part of the semi-annual Kvitbrakka artist residency. 

Swim’s artistic response to the Gulf Stream’s fate has taken on many forms. She’s dyeing airy silk banners with cyanotype, the process used to make blueprints, then pinning paper stencils of fish to the fabric and exposing it to sunlight. The fabric turns a cerulean blue around the stencils.

Whitten combined her concerns for kelp with her interest in plastic manufacturing and waste in the oceans to create work for “The Blue Ribbon.” She removed the film from old photographic slides, and the slides became frames that she wrapped in strips of discarded plastic grocery bags. 

“I’m concerned about what’s happening with the marine environment,” says Whitten, who has lived off and on in her native Australia and eastern Canada. “One of the things I noticed after being away [from Canada] for 13 years is that the kelp has changed in Nova Scotia. It's covered in a little organism that impacts the reproductive and feeding cycles. Kelp forests are being destroyed because of the warming waters of the Gulf Stream.” A recent study found that Nova Scotia’s kelp beds have shrunk between 85 and 99 percent.

“As people look at the work, my hope is that they’ll think about the amount of plastic in it, and the amount we’re producing, and then think about the bigger picture, how that’s impacting climate and the Gulf Stream,” Whitten says. “It's a matter of hooking people to understand the importance of it, how we’re dependent on it, and realize that there’s a real urgency for taking action.”

Hilda Russell, curator of interpretation at the Fisheries Museum and project manager for “The Blue Ribbon,” says the exhibit is important to them because the museum is an advocate for ocean preservation. It’s the museum’s first time hosting an art exhibit. 

“In a museum, we work with artifacts, so this is an interesting hybrid of art gallery and museum,” Russell says. “There’s a layer of interpretation that will be provided with the art. We can increase the awareness of how important it is to preserve the wonders of the ocean by way of an art exhibition.”

SeaBlue Canada, a coalition of eight NGOs active on marine issues, is supporting the exhibit with funding and other resources. The partnership is the result of a serendipitous meeting: One day when Swim and a friend were walking together in Lunenburg, they bumped into Jennifer Josenhans, the national director of the coalition, who Swim’s friend happened to know. They got to talking about the exhibit, and Josenhans was intrigued.

“Art is an incredibly powerful medium because it combines a personal experience with the actual, very real problem,” Josenhans says. “To have a lasting impact, it’s more meaningful than a thousand documentaries, posters, or advertisements that say these things are in peril.”

SeaBlue, the Fisheries Museum, and the artists are partnering to line up guest speakers, plan demonstrations, organize beach cleanups, and maybe launch a local craft beer to honor the exhibit. “We’re also using our large reach to get lots of publicity,” Josenhans says.  

“I met her on the street in Lunenburg!” says Swim of her chance meeting with Josenhans. “I’m living an enchanted life!” Pointing to yet another coincidence born of this project, Swim knows that the Canadian ambassador to Norway, Amy Baker, grew up in Lunenburg County. “We’re the center of the universe,” she says, laughing. Swim requested that the town of Lunenburg declare this summer an official celebration of the Gulf Stream.

Everyone involved hopes to see the impacts of Blue Ribbon reach beyond the exhibit. “We want the message to go further,” says Swim, who hopes to create a catalogue of the artwork. Of the exhibit itself, she adds, “We’re hoping it will go to Norway.” If it does, Blue Ribbon will reach across the Atlantic, following the current that connects us.