12 Artists Face A Changing Climate

12 Artists On: Climate Change; A dozen artistic responses to one of the greatest threats of our time.

Zoe Lescaze, August 22, 2018 (NY Times)

Editor’s note: Only one Quick News piece today because this story is worth the time it will take to use the link at the bottom of the post to click through and take in all the artists’ contributions.

“Human-induced climate change, which certain politicians deny and many of us choose to ignore, threatens the survival of every species on Earth. If emissions continue at their current rate, scientists anticipate widespread coastal land loss, agricultural and economic collapse, food and water shortages, frequent and severe natural disasters, and unprecedented refugee crises…[For an ongoing NY Times arts series, 12 contemporary artists contributed works responding to climate change. Xavier Cortada will ask 6,000 Florida households] to install an ‘Underwater HOA’ yard sign (similar to the 18- by 24-inch ‘Home for Sale” yard signs used by realtors…[showing] how many feet of melted glacial water must rise before a particular property is underwater…

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…[Mary Mattingly’s] photograph was taken in Utah, at a point equidistant from Bears Ears National Monument and Daneros Uranium Mine. A recent order by President Donald J. Trump shrank the boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument by nearly 700,000 acres, and it seems likely that more mining will come to the area. The text on the pine box is from Samuel Beckett’s 1953 novel The Unnamable…[It] prompts us to ask: What do people see when they experience this land, and what is hidden? The objects in the photograph — clays used for pigments, tools containing uranium, copper used in bullets — were found in the area, and expose its contradictions: Extraction and smelting processes toxify the land and its dependents, while the extracted elements are simultaneously necessary to create the goods that sustain many ways of life…

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…[Alexis Rockman’s art to] render moments of extinction, genocide, population explosion and political discord visible…[so] we might learn to confront and change the conditions leading to civilization’s collapse…[He has realized] we have a crucial Achilles heel: Our brains are wired to be tribal and to think only in the seasonal short term. Even someone as persuasive as Al Gore could not successfully galvanize the world with his books and films. The idea of ‘sacrificing’ for the future seems ridiculous to most people when they are entrenched in a daily struggle for survival. Even if they will listen, people just don’t have the collective will to do much. The engine of capitalism is too powerful…” click here for more

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