Description: “The whole earth is the true human body.” - Dōgen
“On-screen, climate devastation is everywhere you look, and yet nowhere in focus...”
~ David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth
Climate change is the cause célèbre of our lifetimes, and yet our experience of it is mostly entrenched in news headlines, extreme weather events, protests, and policy debates. We can see the subject of climate change has been a standard feature in the news this summer, and in recent years with the Green New Deal and the rise in notoriety of younger activists like Greta Thunberg. Yet how do we begin to have a discourse about the meaning and merit of responding to climate change through artistic expression? What is the relationship between climate change and art?
This is a time of major loss, societal grief and trauma, and art can reflect our needs for connection and beauty while we process these challenges. Climate change often feels viscerally distant, a grief stuck in ambiguity somewhere just around the corner. This blurriness begs the question: What is climate art and what makes it compelling?
*Note: There are no prerequisites for this course. It is open to students across all majors and minors.
- Teacher: Scott Kirschenbaum
- Teacher: Robert Swoap