Tag Archives: #climate

Through the Climate Artist’s Lens

Following are profiles of a few climate artists and how their works explore our relationship with the environment. Though the artists mentioned here create various types of work, this blog focuses on their installations in urban spaces where we are most likely to forget our relationship with nature.

River Rooms by Stacy Levy, 2018

STACY LEVY – The site specific installations of Stacy Levy visualize natural elements such as wind, rain, sunlight, and waterways. These installations are weaved into urban design and placed in public spaces. They invite the public to interact with the natural world that lives and breathes alongside them, but is often unnoticed. Levy’s series of works called Tides are installed in city parks. “River Rooms” are boat shaped structures placed along the Schuylkill River. They allow people of the city to sit by the river and observe it all year round. Similarly, “Tide Field” in the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia and “Tide Flowers” in the Hudson River in New York are floating devices that respond to the river’s tides. They change based on how high or low the water in the river is. Both installations are placed where city dwellers can see the rivers change throughout the day. It’s a reminder that the rivers are alive even in densely populated urban areas.

Reduce Speed Now! by Justin Brice Guarriglia, 2019

JUSTIN BRICE GUARRIGLIA – Messages about the existential crisis of climate change are brought to public spaces through Justin Brice Guarriglia’s LED light installations and marquees. Guarriglia reminds us that “We are the asteroids” that are threatening our world. His project, Eco-Haikus for Marquees, places haikus about climate change at the entrance of theaters in Los Angeles and New York City. Guarriglia draws inspiration from the writing of Bruno Latour and attempts to make abstract ideas about climate change more accessible to the public. Reduce Speed Now is another project of Guarriglia’s. It’s an installment of solar powered LED lights that share messages from climate activists, artists, philosophers from around the world. This project was created for a 2019 Earth Day event in London and it invited the public to share their own messages through the LED light installations during the event.

Ice Watch by Olafur Eliasson, 2015

OLAFUR ELIASSON – When looking through the images of Ice Watch and how people interact with it, we see a combination of spectacle and mourning. Olafur Eliasson created Ice Watch, an installation, by transporting floating icebergs from the fjords of Greenland to public spaces in London and Paris. It confronts the public with the fact that the glaciers are melting in a more intimate way. The installation evokes the cathartic feeling of time running out and watching something bigger than us slowly fall apart. While walking through these icebergs, some people are in awe and can’t help but take selfies with them. Others kiss, hug, or hold the icebergs in a regretful way because they understand what we’re losing. For most of us, the melting glaciers is something that is happening far away. Watching videos of glaciers melting in the news or in documentaries doesn’t begin to describe the profoundness of this loss and the danger associated with it. Eliasson tries to change that with “Ice Watch”. 

Gaia Offended

A found poem created from the text of the Green New Deal by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and In Catastrophic Times by Isabelle Stengers. 

Gaia Sacred System, digital painting by Cristina McAllister 
the earth was not ours

we have chosen
Gaia’s intrusion
we, the probable protagonists
suspended in time

inheritors of history, of destruction
catastrophic collapse
bearers of a compass
separated from truth
truth, that disturbs

a world become spectacle
rhythm of news
wheels of fascination
dreams of the rich

freed predator
panic on the markets
progress defined as growth 
criminal growth
hunting the unemployed
the unhoused, millions 
sacrificed at the
altar of growth

a point of departure
an era come to an end
another history begun

stop, prevent, repair 
oppression
of indigenous, of color
of migrants, of workers
of us
this war requires all

reclaim, relearn abstract possibility
collective culpability
public ownership, community-defined
universal access
to nature
to justice, equity, economic security

take root again, in soil
call it joy
joy is 
to act, to think, to imagine 
together
joy, an epidemic

shatter fabrications, atom by atom
build resiliency, fair and just
detoxify the narratives
the air, the water

however small, it matters
to appease Gaia, imagine
a future, radical and daring

A found poem is a form of word collage. It allows us to put various works of literature, whether fiction or nonfiction, in dialogue with each other. It’s a way of understanding and processing the meaning of what we read and consume, in addition to creating new narratives and meaning. This found poem compares the ideas presented in the Green New Deal, a legislation, and Isabelle Stengers’ philosophical contemplations about climate and unregulated economic growth. Stengers speaks in favor of socialism and believes that many of the destructions we’re currently facing are a result of capitalism. Likewise, Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal is described by some as a socialist agenda. Stengers describes politicians as our guardians who keep us complacent and convince us to accept systemic injustices. However, Ocasio-Cortez is speaking out against the kind of complacency Stenger denounces. The Green New Deal attempts to put into practice many of Stenger’s theories. One thing to keep in mind is that though both Stengers and Ocasio-Cortez are critical of the unregulated economic growth and systemic injustices that resulted from decades of capitalism, they’re not opposing growth itself. Stengers is not advocating for degrowth. Similarly, job creation and economic prosperity are at the center of the Green New Deal. What Stengers and Ocasio-Cortez are advocating for is growth that is reflective, sustainable, fair, and just; growth that empowers everyone and gives them agency rather than to put power and control in the hands of a few. 

Another Movement, Another Leader

It is undeniable that Al Gore played a significant role in raising awareness about climate change and he has been fighting tirelessly to motivate world leaders to ordinary people to take action in their own way. The following observations about An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power are not a criticism or dismissal of the important work he is doing to address climate change. They are rather an analysis of how the documentary itself works as propaganda and the underlying messages conveyed in it. At first glance it may seem that the documentary is about the urgent threat of climate change, but a deeper look shows that it is also about a strategic portrayal of Al Gore and where he places himself in the context of the climate movement. 

Al Gore claims that he’s a “recovering politician”. Yet, when we listen to the background music during some of the scenes in An Inconvenient Sequel [i.e. the melting glaciers, Al Gore negotiating, etc.], it almost makes the documentary seem like a political drama. Music and sound effects in film play a key role in evoking specific emotions from the audience. The choice of background music in this documentary builds tension and helps to portray Al Gore as a political figure who is targeted or confronted by wealthy climate deniers, the press, conspiracy theorists, etc. The music helps to convey the high stakes of Al Gore’s mission and the challenges he has to overcome to achieve them.

Moreover, the juxtaposition of Al Gore’s concession speech followed by the two Bush administrations and clips of Trump’s statements nudges the audience to think of Al Gore’s election loss as a collective lost opportunity. It makes us wonder what could have been if Al Gore had won the election and the race against time to address climate change wasn’t set back. He supports Obama’s values and climate initiatives. The documentary culminates into an impassioned speech where he compares the climate movement to the civil rights movement and makes references to Martin Luther King Jr.. This is another subtle nudge to portray Al Gore as the MLK of the climate movement. The screen grabs from Al Gore’s speech at the end of An Inconvenient Sequel show him in the same poses as MLK in photos of the “I have a dream” speech.