Huffington Post - Laura Paddison
“We should (and may) die trying to render climate change issues accessible."
We are bombarded with evidence of climate change. We can see the impacts through
scorching summers,
wildfires and increasingly intense
extreme weather events. We hear about it through
terrifying scientific reports that say we have
just a few years before we’ll have missed the boat on holding back our slide into catastrophic climate change. And yet few people act; most
don’t even talk about it.
Increasingly,
artists are trying to use their work to beat back a sense of apathy and
inaction, to visualize the effects and threats of climate change.
For
some, this means using empathy and emotion to try to reach people; for
some, it’s turning to technology to engage people in a virtual image of
what our future will look like if we don’t change course; still for
others, it’s about making a brutal reality visible and tangible for
people, even when their own hope in change has dissipated.
Here we look at eight artists taking on the ultimate subject: climate change.
‘Climate Signals,’ Justin Brice Guariglia |
| Climate Museum |
Ten solar-powered highway signs have appeared across New York City
providing orange LED warnings of climate doom. The signs by artist
Justin Brice Guariglia form an installation running in each borough of
the city between Sept. 1 and Nov. 6 as part of a project for The Climate
Museum.
The signs are located in areas particularly vulnerable to climate
change and are in the languages frequently spoken in that particular
neighborhood. They flash a number of messages including “Climate Change
At Work” and “Fossil Fueling Inequality.”
“The arts are a
critical vector for climate engagement,” Miranda Massie, director of The
Climate Museum, told HuffPost. “Only 5 percent of us speak about
[climate change] with any regularity. We need a cultural transformation
to break that silence ― we need to offer diverse pathways into climate
dialogue and action, including soft ones. Art is a crucial pathway
because it works through emotion and the senses, and because it provokes
without prescribing.”
‘Ice Watch,’ Olafur Eliasson
 |
"Ice Watch", an art installation by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, on display in Paris in December 2015.
OEL SAGET via Getty Images |
Danish-Icelandic artist
Olafur Eliasson’s work involved transporting 12 blocks of ice that came
from free-floating icebergs from the Greenland ice sheet, then arranging
them in a clock formation to indicate the passing of time. The ice
sculptures were left to slowly melt.
His first installation was
in Copenhagen in 2014, the second in Paris to coincide with the United
Nations climate change conference in December 2015.
He firmly
believes art has the power to make a difference. “There is a tendency
today to feel untouched by the problems of others, to shut down at the
immensity of an issue like climate change,” he told HuffPost. “Just
informing people, giving them knowledge, often leaves them feeling
overwhelmed and disempowered.” But a piece like “Ice Watch,” he said,
“offers people an immediate experience of the reality of climate change
... It makes the larger world felt. It is my hope that this encounter
and the feelings it evokes can spur action and move worlds.”
‘Unmoored,’ Mel Chin
 |
Pedestrians walk past artist Mel Chin's mixed reality climate change themed art installation,
"Unmoored," in New York City on July 11, 2018.
Lucas Jackson / Reuters |
New York City is one of the world cities most vulnerable to sea level rises – by 2100, scientists predict sea levels could be
up to 75 inches higher than they are today along the city’s coastline and estuaries.
Artist
Mel Chin’s Times Square multimedia installation, “Unmoored,” sought to
show New Yorkers what their city might look like deep under water. A
60-foot high sculpture of a shipwreck sat in the square, while viewers
used smartphones to see the underside of virtual ships floating far
above their heads.
“It is a surreal experience invented to connect us with our reality,”
Chin said at the opening of the installation.
“We
should (and may) die trying to render climate change issues
perceptually accessible as a means to reactivate wonder and rekindle
empathy,” he told HuffPost,
‘The peo-ple cried mer-cy in the storm,’ Allison Janae Hamilton |
"The peo-ple cried mer-cy in the storm," by Allison Janae Hamilton.
Jerry L Thompson |
On an island at Storm King
Art Center, in Mountainville, New York, are three vertiginous stacks of
tambourines all painted white. They form an installation by
Kentucky-born, Florida-raised artist Allison Janae Hamilton. The title –
“The peo-ple cried mer-cy in the storm” – comes from a 1928 hymn,
“Florida Storm,” written about the Great Miami Hurricane, which in 1926
devastated large parts of southern Florida,
killing nearly 400 people.
Hamilton says the piece also references the Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928, which claimed between
2,500 and 3,000 lives
in Florida and the Caribbean. Many of those in Florida who lost their
lives in the disaster were black, migrant farm workers who were later
buried in mass, unmarked graves.
“As climate change continues to
threaten our environments, so increases the vulnerability of those
already exposed to longstanding environmental injustices,” Hamilton told
HuffPost. “Through the narratives in my artwork, I explore the changing
climate as a palpable, human experience.”
‘What Future Do You Choose for Miami?’, Miami Murals/Before It’s Too Late
 |
A viewer uses their smartphone to view ‘What Future Do You Choose for Miami?’,
an augmented reality mural in the city.
Before Its Too Late |
A
group of artists and technologists, anxious to better engage people in
the threats posed by climate change, have banded together to create an
augmented-reality mural in the city under the banner of an initiative called “Before It’s Too Late.”Miami has been called the ground zero of climate change. By 2030, Miami sea levels are projected to
rise by six to 10 inches
above 1992 levels. Extreme weather events have battered the city –
2017′s Hurricane Irma swept through Florida leaving a trail of
devastation in its wake and claiming
more than 80 lives in the state.
The
96- by 14-foot mural features a canary, designed to symbolize the
city’s status as a “canary in the coal mine” when it comes to climate
change.
Viewers download an app that allows them to point their
smartphones at the wall and see it come to life by way of an
augmented-reality film. The film shows two future realities for the
city. In one, no action is taken and the city becomes unliveable –
flooded, decaying and dirty. The second shows a hopeful future powered
by renewable energy.
“Our message is in order to create change for
a better future, we have to first be willing to shine the mirror on
ourselves as we are each participants who help create the moral and
cultural values of this world,” “Before It’s Too Late” founder Linda
Cheung told HuffPost.
‘Western Flag (Spindletop, Texas 2017),’ John Gerrard
 |
Western Flag (Spindletop, Texas 2017), a virtual art installation by Irish artist John Gerrard,
uses a haunting image to symbolize our complex relationship with oil.
Courtesy John Gerrard Thomas Dane Gallery London and Simon Preston Gallery New York |
The focal point of his work is a towering, computer-generated flag belching out black smoke. The
flag runs as if in real time: The landscape turns dark when the sun goes down in Texas and is lit during the daytime.
Spindletop, Texas, is the
site of the world’s first major oil discovery, made in 1901. Where once
100,000 barrels of oil were extracted in one day, the land is now
barren. Irish artist John Gerrard flew a drone over the area, taking
10,000 to 15,000 photos, to recreate it virtually for his artwork
Western Flag.
Gerrard
wanted to take on oil as something that is central to our reality, a
material that has become essential to the way we live our lives both in
terms of the advantages it provides and the climate damage it causes.
The
flag aims to make manifest this uncomfortable dichotomy. “One of the
greatest legacies of the 20th century is not just population explosion
or better living standards, but vastly raised carbon dioxide levels in
the atmosphere,” Gerrard told HuffPost. “This flag gives this invisible
gas, this international risk, an image, a way to represent itself.”
‘Cascade,’ Alexis Rockman
 |
Cascade, 2015, oil and alkyd on wood, Collection Grand Rapids Art Museum.
Alexis Rockman Collection Grand Rapids Art Museum |
Alexis Rockman has been
tackling climate change through his art since 1994, when a
paleontologist described the danger heading our way and why he was
frightened about it. Rockman decided to used his position as an artist
“to visualize these things that were very abstract and remote in terms
of people’s life span and comprehension,” he told HuffPost.
“I
realized that art was one of the few places where you don’t have
censorship pressure from capitalism from powerful industries,” he added.
“They don’t have a say if you decide to focus on ideas that might
challenge their business model.”
Many of his images show
landscapes ravaged by climate change and environmental destruction.
“Cascade” is part of his “Great Lakes Cycle,” a series that explores the
past, present and future of America’s Great Lakes. These lakes form one
of the most important ecosystems on the planet, holding over 20 percent
of the world’s freshwater reserves. But they are exploited and
vulnerable to climate change. Rockman depicts both their beauty and the
devastating threats they face.
When asked if he thought art can
spur change when it comes to global warming, he replied: “No. When there
is open warfare on empirical facts my feelings include rage and disgust
to go along with despair.” But, he added, “Part
of the reason to be an artist is to get yourself out of bed every
morning and try to do something about it, or at least cope. The thing
about being an artist is that it’s so self-motivated and self-determined
that it has to be an act of defiance to get through it.”
"Rococo Remastered," by Noel Kassewitz. Kassewitz Kassewitz Productions 2018
 |
"Rococo Remastered," by Noel Kassewitz.
Kassewitz Kassewitz Productions 2018 |
Washington, D.C.-based artist Noel Kassewitz makes “climate change
ready” art. Using found flotation devices and color palettes from
different periods of art history – such as rococo – she makes pieces
that aim to bring attention to climate change with humor.
“Today,
we are facing unprecedented levels of chaos with our climate,” Kassewitz
told HuffPost, “While there are myriad ways the change is occurring,
one most concerning to me – an artist and Miami native – is rising sea
levels.”
She has been floating down the Potomac River on her
artwork, showing its buoyant abilities as well as trying to send a
message to those who ignore the problem.
“Humor catches people
off guard, and through my current bodies of work I am often able spark
conversations with people otherwise reluctant to engage with the topic.
As for my own amusement, I imagine some day in the flooded future an art
collector will be safely sitting on top of their floating artwork
exclaiming, “Thank goodness we bought a Noel Kassewitz!’
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