Sporting yellow rubber gloves and an orange bandanna tying her hair, Annie Saunders sits, tired, on a red bucket in an elevated glass-walled cell on the lawn of the Ca d’Zan. Armed with a bucket and squeegee, she’s been washing the aquarium. The audience watches as she appears to gather herself, then the water rushes in around her feet, filling the cell and closing over her head as a chorus of screams erupt from the surrounding speakers. This is Holoscenes, the latest public art and performance project from artist Lars Jan, on display at the Ringling Museum until Saturday.

Meant as a comment on climate change and rising waters, following the events of Hurricane Katrina Jan found himself “riveted” by the scenes of destruction and “comparatively frail human figures at the mercy of surging waters,” the artist said in a statement. When Hurricane Sandy brought the water to his apartment door in Brooklyn seven years later, Holoscenes began – a series of performances featuring divers and dancers engaging in everyday activities as the waters rise and recede, often negating the effort.

The performances strike a delicate balance between structure and improvisation, according to Pablo Molina, who joined Jan four years ago and helped engineer the aquarium and write the software directing the water flow. “There’s a general narrative, but it varies with the undulations of the water,” said Molina. “It’s an improvised performance between us and the performers.” He and his team keep close eye through the performance, making sure the waters behave.

Back in the aquarium, Saunder floats face-down like a corpse, hair wisping freely in the current. The bucket and tools bob like detritus in rhythm. The water drains as Saunders awakes, swims and somersaults, before her feet find purchase on the bottom. She sets to cleaning, angry and frustrated now, flinging gouts of water from the bucket and splashing the walls.

The performances were derived from videos from around the world of people going about their lives and carrying out ordinary tasks, resulting in scenes that feel all too familiar before being swallowed by water. A site-specific performance, the lawn of the Ca d’Zan was chosen specifically because rising sea predictions say the first floor of the historic building will be underwater well before the century ends. “Aesthetically, it’s a beautiful work of art, sometimes humorous and sometimes strangely profound,” said Ringling Museum Curator of Performance Dwight Currie. “But you also ask yourself what are you going to do when the water begins to rise.”

For Annie Saunders, she believes the audience will bring most of the meaning with them, interpreting the piece from their own perspective, but she also believes that socially conscious art such as Holoscenes can bring about desired change. “When you’re in a real place in real time with a real person doing something dramatic and unusual,” said Saunders. “You can elicit a certain gut reaction that statistics don’t achieve.”

Lars Jan’s Holoscenes will be on the lawn of the Ca d’Zan until Mar 28, with performances Thurs-Sat at 12pm.