Because it’s hard to know these days whether to be cautiously optimistic that the recession might be ending or terrified that nobody knows what will happen next, contemplating Florida’s place in the economic (and, increasingly, environmental) miasma is a harrowing exercise.

Artist Michael Parker has his own vision of the state’s fate, as expressed in a composite of digital photographs ("The Final Battle," left): two toddlers, each sunk ankle-deep into cement, seeming to lunge toward each other in a grappling contest, set against a slightly surreal landscape of swirling clouds and an ominously looming tree.

The picture — simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny and disturbing — conveys in a nutshell for curator Manuel Lopez what the exhibit Slow Death of a Flamingo is about.

This article appears in Aug 5-11, 2009.