It's Getting Hot in Here

Climate change. No longer a conspiracy theory. No longer about Al Gore. It’s become a more frightening reality year after year. In California, we have seen devastating fires ravage homes and surrounding forests. The East Coast continues to get hammered by hurricanes and flooding. The rising temperature in our climate will have severe consequences on our agriculture, health, and water supply. There are no do-overs. There is no “oopsie, my bad” on reversing the damage we have done to this beautiful planet we call home.

It’s incredible that anyone can question this reality, yet we still see those who disregard the facts despite the science. If the COVID pandemic has taught us anything, it’s the sobering reality that facts and science remain questionable traits for specific individuals in our society. Sadly, there are severe consequences for all of us when many people deny the truth.

If people do not listen to the talking heads or reputable sources for factual information and ignore the weather extremes we are experiencing, what options do we have? Is it possible that art can change minds? Perhaps the power of an image can shift thinking. We are visual creates living in a world inundated with images daily. Constantly. Snapchat, Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook. We are overdosing on visuals, and yet, maybe there is good that can come from the power of images.

The human brain can process an image in 13 milliseconds – 60,000 times faster than text. Furthermore, 80% of people remember what they see, compared to ten percent of what they hear and 20% of what they read. Hearing about a polluted ocean is different than seeing it.

And seeing the reality of drought and dying farmlands is more powerful than your local grocer running out of your favorite Fuji apples.

Many artists today are becoming climate activists and using their work to raise awareness. The power of art to inform and inspire is reflected in some of the artists presented below.

Tomas Saraceno is an Argentinian artist who uses the concepts of linking art and life sciences together in his work. His immersive installations “propose sensory solidarity with the planet through a social, mental, and environmental ecology of practice.”

Olafur Eliasson’s series Earth Perspectives, launched on Earth Day 2020, features nine images with nine different views of earth to provide perspective and insight. As Eliasson explains, “Earth perspectives envisions the earth we want to live on together by welcoming multiple perspectives – not only human perspectives but also those of plants, animals, and nature.”

Allison Janae Hamilton is a visual artist that uses multiple mediums, photography, sculpture, installation, and performance, to present the irrefutable argument that people of color are always on the front lines of natural disasters. Her piece The Peo-ple Cried Mer-cy in the Storm is composed of two stacks of tambourines, representing the two major hurricanes that Florida experienced in the early part of the 20th century. Hamilton stated that, “I was really interested in how communities grapple with the aftereffects of natural disasters. And how they become social disasters.”

Jenny Kendler is an interdisciplinary ecological artist, and environmental activist who uses her art to focus on climate change and biodiversity loss. She uses her practice to de-center the human to make space for the transformative otherness of the more-than-human world. In her installation Birds Watching, the artist created a 40-foot-long sculpture composed of one hundred reflective bird eyes mounted on aluminum. Each eye represents a species of bird considered to be imperiled by climate change in the United States.

While these artists have used art to shed light on particular aspects of climate change it begs the question, what can you do?

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

— Jane Goodall

Step by step. One day at a time. Each of our actions together can make a difference.

-trw