Excerpt:
From sculpture to photography, art can create space for creative solutions.
What does a pencil have to say about the future? What does a song, a smell, a coyote, or a lush Haitian garden teach us about how to live in a world in flux? Artists are examining these questions as they try to make sense of climate change.
The following eight artists are a few of the many who are making space to imagine different possible futures, allowing people to see the world in new ways, and encouraging them to come together to create climate solutions.
In their work, Chicago-based sculptors Sara Black and Amber Ginsburg tease out the role humans play in our natural ecosystems…
Rebecca Lee Kunz, an artist and citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, creates her work using printmaking, paint, natural materials like leaves and stones, and more…
Photographer Terry Evans also is inspired by lessons from the land. Evans grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, and her work has revolved around prairies since 1978. As she spent time in the prairies, her awareness of climate change grew…
Landscapes and traditions also play in the work of Brooklyn-based painter Madjeen Isaac, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, who as a child grew up in a predominantly Caribbean neighborhood…
Sensory experiences also play an important role in the work of Jack Coulter, a painter from Northern Ireland. Coulter has synesthesia, a neurological condition in which one sensory experience (like sound) can trigger experiences in another sense (like sight)…
Many artists are inspired to bring climate change into their work after a direct experience with it. Catherine Sarah Young hopes her work helps people understand and talk about their experiences with climate change…
Dana Jung, an illustrator from Korea, uses her work to create a picture of a more sustainable world for humans and animals. Like Isaac, Jung pulls green space and nature into urban landscapes..
Mika Tosca, a climate science professor at the Art Institute of Chicago, says art can help widen imaginations about climate solutions. “A lot of people agree with the science of climate change but are uninspired to act on it. Why?” she said. “What is the point of all this knowledge that we keep creating if it’s not inspiring solutions?”
