Climate Culture: Art-driven narratives to combat the environmental crisis

The current climate crisis manifests itself through different narratives. While climate data and reports tell facts and expose hard truths, weather conspiracy theories cause confusion, and speculative scenaria promise the restoration of earth's atmosphere. Climate narratives are used to address and communicate the planetary emergency to various publics. Which of the stories being told, though, not only raise awareness but also empower people to provoke change individually and collectively?

At this panel, artists and curators are invited to discuss the role of art in combating the climate crisis, and in envisioning a healthier planet based on climate justice. Bringing together people with different practices and methodologies, the panel presents works and narratives that refer to a multiplicity of worlds and futures. The transdisciplinary projects, poetic performances, summits and metaphors mentioned show art’s affective, unifying and emancipatory qualities. Overcoming binaries like those of culture and nature, past and future, or human and non-human, or technology and culture, speakers underline the need to acknowledge differences and interdependencies. Emphasizing that the crisis is felt asymmetrically around the world in terms of space but also time, they urge cultural institutions to use their power and take action, shifting their purpose and perspective as needed.

Speakers
James Bridle, Artist and Writer
Phoebe Giannisi, Poet and Architect, Professor at the Department of Architecture of the University of Thessaly
Lucia Pietroiusti, Curator, General Ecology, Serpentine Galleries
Jonas Staal, Artist and Propaganda Researcher

Moderator
Daphne Dragona, Independent Curator and Writer