DEVELOPING THE ART
Developed and realised by artist Joseph Rossano, the Salmon School installation consists of a school of mirrored salmon-like forms, hand-blown from molten glass by artists and makers from around the world, all of whom are concerned by the plight of wild salmon. Working with the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA, the initial forms were created and a method was developed to easily replicate versions of a salmon-like shape using blown glass.
The first exhibition of Salmon School took place at the Bellevue Arts Museum in Washington State. Displayed at eye level, it reflected the population of native wild salmon in the Skagit River, flowing into Puget Sound, North of Seattle. Following this exhibition, Rossano was approached by The Missing Salmon Alliance to work with a consortium of NGOs from around the world to bring Salmon School to the United Nations Climate Change Summit (COP26). After COP26, the art will be displayed in locations around the UK before returning to the Pacific Northwest – the place of its birth - where it will be part of the 2022 United Nations International Year of Glass at the Museum of Glass.
APRIL 1, 2022
NEVER BEFORE
Balmoral Castle to display first ever contemporary art installation this April as part of exhibition to mark The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
The artwork will form part of an exhibition entitled “Life at Balmoral” which will run from April 1 to August 2 – celebrating all life at Balmoral “from the River to the Royals”, and will provide a fitting tribute to the decades of salmon conservation work supported by The Queen, the Royal Family and the Balmoral Estate on the River Dee over the last 170 years.
The Balmoral Estate works closely with the River Dee Trust to deliver practical salmon restoration to help protect the endangered fish. Most recently, across Deeside, the River Dee Trust and Dee District Salmon Fishery Board have introduced a ‘One Million Trees’ campaign to plant riverbank trees, to help restore the Dee and save its iconic salmon. Trees have multiple benefits in helping wild salmon to thrive, including providing shade over the water, nourishment through leaves and insects, and helping to stabilise the riverbanks to prevent erosion. The Balmoral Estate have already planted 300,000 trees along the River Dee in the last five years.
The environmental stewardship work to protect wild salmon also includes using windblown trees to create large wooden structures in the rivers on the Estate, to offer a variety of salmon habitats, which in turn give shelter from bad weather and trap nutrients. Small wooden dams have also been created in the Estate’s smaller streams to help river flows in times of flood and drought. The Estate hopes to create the best conditions for the salmon to thrive and is delighted to present this new installation to highlight the importance of salmon conversation.
EXHIBITIONS
Since its inaugural exhibition at the Bellevue Arts Museum in April 2019, the project has been renamed The SALMON SCHOOL. Under this new title, the project was a keynote presentation at the COP26 conference on Climate Change in Glasgow, Scotland, in November of 2021. Subsequently, The SALMON SCHOOL has begun to travel the globe on a circular journey, serving as a symbol of hope — hope that, through awareness and community building, we can foment real change.
