Climate in the Frame: Art's Expanding Role in Environmental Activism
Artists are leveraging creative practices to confront climate change, producing works that advocate tangible action and systemic change.
On a sweltering afternoon in June 2023, The Great Animal Orchestra by soundscape composer Bernie Krause and United Visual Artists captivated visitors at the Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts. This installation merges spectrogram visualizations with field recordings, immersing attendees in sonic ecologies threatened by climate disruption. One visitor sits, enveloped in the calls of Arctic snow geese and Amazonian frogs, realizing the growing silence in parts of the spectrum—a haunting absence tied to biodiversity loss accelerated by global warming, as Krause notes.
Krause's work reflects a movement of artists engaging directly with climate science and activism. In 2015, Olafur Eliasson and geologist Minik Rosing presented Ice Watch in Paris during COP21. This installation featured twelve blocks of melting Greenland ice in the city’s Place du Panthéon, a visceral reminder of ice sheet erosion. Such projects confront audiences through material embodiment, a strategy increasingly adopted in environmental art.
Julia Lohmann’s Department of Seaweed, initiated during her 2013 residency at the Victoria and Albert Museum, investigates kelp as both material and metaphor. Her workshops have developed alternative uses for seaweed in textiles and bioplastics, demonstrating how art can inform sustainable design. Lohmann stated, "The act of making with seaweed bridges environmental stewardship and creativity, offering tangible entry points into sustainability."
Data-driven artworks create new languages for climate discourse. The Carbon Ruins project (2019), exhibited at Sweden’s Lund University, imagines a speculative museum of environmental change, urging viewers to reflect on their role in the climate crisis. Artists are not merely observers; they are catalysts for action, shaping a future where creativity and environmental responsibility coexist.
- The Great Animal Orchestra — Peabody Essex Museum
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