Melting Ice Caps and Burning Forests: Climate Crisis As Artistic Expression

Niveditha Ajay

The Climate Crisis is an undeniable reality, but are we willing to face the fact? With reports that talk of melting ice and burning forests, the real anxiety of reconciling with drastic environmental changes looms large. Also, there is the portion of the population that simply refuses to admit the phenomena exists or do not have the resources to learn about something that seems so far removed from them. This is where Climate Change Art carves a space for itself. A relatively new concept, the wave includes installations, paintings, digital art and more, that aim to spread awareness about Climate Change while also encouraging urgent action. Many of the most famous works under this umbrella are community projects, involving groups and collectives committed to enforcing change- this further highlights the importance of collective action in combatting the crisis that is so much larger than the individual.

A popular global collaboration is the Tempestry Project, first set up in Washington, USA in 2017. The project involves knitted temperature tapestries, each row in the tapestry having been knitted according to the highest temperature predicted for a day. A single tapestry shows the temperature data for a year, universally colour coded. The rise in temperatures is now staring in the viewer’s face- deep greens slowly fading into the flaming oranges of global warming. An anonymous artists’ collective Luzinterruptus set up the We are Frying! exhibit in Madrid, in 2020. The piece imagined a world with temperatures so high, falling leaves would be fried as soon as they fell to the ground. Appropriately, potato chips were arranged within an illuminated circle representing the fried leaves. The work, which may once have seemed exaggerated or even surreal- hits home. The future represented does not seem very far away, emphasizing the piece’s importance even further. Another unique example is a digital space highlighting utopian, nature-based societies created by the Institute of Queer Ecology and the Guggenheim. Habitat One: Regenerative Interactive Zone of Nurture or H.O.R.I.Z.O.N is an artwork that invites audience participation, as they embark on a journey in a ‘digital commune’ on an island of wilderness. The above pieces are a few examples amongst a vast array of art that demands to be heard- they occupy space in public discourse surrounding the shifting realities of the environment, lasting in the minds of their audience owing to the messages embedded within.

Apart from collectives and museums, individual artists have taken it upon themselves to represent the crisis in their work, dedicating entire collections to doing so. Singaporean artist Tan Zi Xi used 500 kg of plastic that she had cleaned to create her Plastic Ocean installation. The plastic hangs in empty space through which the viewers walk through, revealing the suffocating reality of aquatic creatures who live amongst human-made water pollution. Described as ‘unsettling’ this too is a warning, an insight into a very real possibility. While artists like Tan Zi Xi represent nature in their art, some opt for collaboration with nature itself. DJ and sound artist Jason Singh collect ‘biodata’ from threatened plants- they include electric signals the plants send out when interacting with their environment and sunlight. He then transforms them into moving songs that talk of survival. Extinction Songs is a soulful experience that truly lays bare the very interconnected relationship between the natural world and humans. A huge group of artists are involved in the process of making climate-conscious art today, a few colourful examples being listed above. The purpose of listing and taking note of these pieces, however, is to also ask why they choose to create such art in the first place.

Beyond the obvious reasons surrounding awareness and education, there is also a deeply layered understanding of human grief and hope that lies within these pieces. The Climate Crisis is a global predicament, standing as single units within our bodies results in an overwhelming sense of helplessness. There is so much happening, yet so little done. Of all the anxieties the art combats, this may be the largest. It is a massive ‘we hear it too, we see it too’, even if politicians and companies do not. No time before the present has seen the devastating effects of the crisis, as seriously as now- there is a need to remain aware, calm, and collected while facing it. It simply cannot be willed away, and what better way to reconcile with this disturbing reality than art that accurately captures the mess of human emotion, and assures the viewer it is okay to feel them? Through this lens, then, Climate Change art is deeply emphatic- not just towards the humans involved, but through its naked portrayal of the assault on the planet- also to nature. It is an attempt at fixing the long-neglected relationship with life beyond the human realm.

The art does not, however, remove accountability. Instead, it doubles down on it. With understanding, it also demands answers. Why is the Crisis here? Why is there not enough being done? Why do few suffer greater and bear heavier consequences? Why are corporations and the wealthy simply unaffected? Climate Change art aims to at least raise these questions in discourse, even if the answers are not immediately available.  It is a nudge in the right direction, such as artist Amber Cooper-Davies hoping to raise a “What can I do?” in the minds of her viewers. Cooper-Davies’ Sea Change shows the horror a shoal of fish experience as each of them begin to turn into the plastic while swimming in the ocean. While representative of the very real environmental issue, it is also an allegory for larger human behaviour. The sheer panic and fear are incapacitating, and art hopes to reach beyond this chaos to assure the viewer, that they too can do something. There is hope and there is fight left, which seems to be what most of these artworks-created by deeply passionate individuals- convey. It then becomes a medium of communication, accommodating the vastly out-of-reach concepts within day-to-day human life. The discussion surrounding what art should look like in the future shall also be partly answered here, it needs to be what makes reality tangible and terror manageable.

References:

• Climate Culture- 11 Climate Change Art Projects
• Rise Art- 9 Artists Confronting Climate Change
• Royal Museum Greenwich- Art helps us feel the urgency of the climate crisis
• Royal Botanic Garden KEW- The Secret World of Plants revealed at Kew Gardens this summer
• Guggenheim-H.O.R.I.Z.O.N. (Habitat One: Regenerative Interactive Zone of Nurture) by the Institute of Queer Ecology

 

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