Art and Climate Change

Description

A timely introduction to the fields of environmental art, art and ecology, art and climate change, art and activism, and art in the Anthropocene. Global awareness of climate change is increasing, and the scientific evidence is incontrovertible: an environmental crisis is upon us. Art and Climate Change presents an overview of ecologically conscious contemporary art that addresses the climate emergency, as artists across the world call for an active, collective engagement with the planet, and illuminate some of the structures that threaten humanity's survival. Across five chapters, curators Maja and Reuben Fowkes examine artworks that respond to the Anthropocene and its detrimental impact on our world, from scenes of nature decimated by ongoing extinction events and landscapes turned to waste by extraction, to art from marginalized communities most affected by the injustice of climate change. What guides the artists gathered together here is an ardent concern for the living, breathing subject of the Earth and all fellow terrestrials caught up in this fast-moving climate drama.

Curators and art historians Dr. Maja Fowkes and Dr. Reuben Fowkes are co-directors of Postsocialist Art Centre (PACT) at the Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London, and co-founders of the Translocal Institute for Contemporary Art, a research centre in Budapest that operates at the intersection between ecological thought and contemporary art. They are co-founders of the Environmental Arts and Humanities Initiative at Central European University and have curated contemporary art and ecology programmes for the Institute of Advanced Studies research streams on Turbulence and Waste (2019-20). They are the authors of several books, including Central and Eastern European Art Since 1950, also in the World of Art series.