The “Vanité” Series by 1011

"Vanité" Series by 1011 highlights the climate crisis and fragility of life as average global temperatures rise. Upper row: Hydrangea at +2.8º C, finished piece process images; Lower row: Buttercup at 1.5º C, finished piece and process images (colored pencils and pencil highlight) 2022, Adagp © 1011, used with permission.

“A humble flower is the labor of centuries.” – William Blake from the Artist’s Statement:“The title (of this collection): “Vanité” refers to the pride of Men who, like Icarus, think they can conquer nature through technological omnipotence industrialization, while in truth, only offer death…” Tulip at +2.1ºC in the “Vanité” series by 1011 (colored pencils and […]

Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction – Grist Magazine

Irreversible (by YongL CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 DEED via DeviantArt).

Grist’s Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors short story contest celebrates stories that offer vivid, hope-filled, diverse visions of climate progress. From 1,000 submissions, our reviewers and judges selected the three winners and nine finalists you will discover in this collection. These stories are not afraid to explore the challenges ahead, but offer hope that we can work together to build a more sustainable and just world….

How to Crochet a Coral Reef – and Why – Scientific American

Evolution of a hyperbolic pseudosphere in crochet (by Cheryl, CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED via Flickr).

In 2005, Los Angeles-based twin sisters, Margaret and Christine Wertheim tried a different approach to communications by starting the Crochet Coral Reef project. The idea was born from their love of the Great Barrier Reef, their oceanic neighbor, and their appreciation for handiwork and the community it can create, simply by participation…

Coral, Crochet and Hyperbolic Geometry . . .

Crochet Coral Reef: TOXIC SEAS, Museum of Arts and Design, NYC 2016 (by Allison Meier CC BY 2.0 DEED via Flickr).

The long-running project, sometimes described as the environmental version of the AIDS quilt, thrives on convoluted math and a sea of volunteers….To date, nearly 25,000 crocheters (“reefers”) have created a worldwide archipelago of more than 50 reefs — both a paean to and a plea for these ecosystems, rainforests of the sea, which are threatened by climate change. The project also explores mathematical themes, since many living reef organisms biologically approximate the quirky curvature of hyperbolic geometry…

The Prescience of Octavia Butler

Octavia E. Butler Tribute NYC, June 5, 2006 (by Houari B. CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED via Flickr).

The effects of climate change are reshaping America. Those with sufficient resources retreat inside protected communities. Those with even greater resources finance an exploratory Mars mission, presumably in an attempt to one day escape Earth’s destabilization. In the political realm, a populist presidential candidate denounces claims made by scientists, promising the electorate that he’s going to “return us to the glory, wealth, and order of the twentieth century.” This is life in 2024…Or at least it’s life in 2024 as imagined by the writer Octavia Butler 31 years ago…

How Octavia Butler Told the Future – the Atlantic

Panel at the American Writers Museum in Chicago (by valoisem CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED via Flickr).

As a science fiction writer, Butler forged a new path and envisioned bold possibilities. On the eve of a major revival of her work, this is the story of how she came to see a future that is now our present..

The Visions of Octavia Butler | Interactive – the New York Times

Quilt of Octavia Butler by Bisa Butler (no relation) at the National Portrait Gallery, November 28, 2023 (by romanlily CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED via Flickr)

(Octavia) Butler was not a climate scientist, a political pundit, or a Silicon Valley technologist…Somehow she knew this time would come. The smoke-choked air from fire gone wild, the cresting rivers and rising seas, the sweltering heat and receding lakes, the melting away of civil society and political stability, the light-year leaps in artificial intelligence—(she) foresaw them all…