Photo: ‘Changing Landscapes’ exhibition, Boston Science Museum
CHANGING LANDSCAPES: An Immersive Journey
BOSTON SCIENCE MUSEUM - from Dec 2023
Visit four UNESCO World Heritage Sites!
From the pyramids of Giza and the churches of Venice to the island community of Rapa Nui and the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde – the Boston Science Museum takes you on an immersive journey to heritage sites facing unprecedented challenges in a changing climate.
Using cutting-edge photogrammetry technology, immersive, awe-inspiring imagery, and engaging multi-modal interactives, this exhibition introduces you to four UNESCO World Heritage Sites affected by the climate crisis. Floor-to-ceiling multimedia, hands-on interactives, and model artifacts meld history, culture, science, and technology to transport you to these culturally significant locations. At each stop, you can take a deep dive into the impacts of Earth’s rapidly changing climate on places and peoples across the globe. Journeying across the sites, visitors can connect with organizations taking action to help us all adapt to life in Earth’s changing landscapes. This exhibit is part of the Boston Science Museum's Year of the Earthshot, in which the Museum of Science explores the most innovative climate solutions of our times.
Science Museum Delves Into Climate Perils Facing UNESCO World Heritage Sites (forbes.com)
The Boston Science Museum has an ongoing climate action empowerment program: info here.
Our Future planet
science MUSEUM, LONDON UK
A free exhibition explores the technologies being developed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Generation Hope: Act for the Planet [Postponed]
NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, LONDON UK
A week of free workshops, panels and talks created in partnership with young people, for young people aged 16+, designed to drive positive change for the planet's future.
Following the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the Museum has decided to postpone Generation Hope: Act for the Planet until early 2023.
© TMP Images
Conserve @ Home
Museum of Science, Boston USA
Permanent exhibit. Exploring household energy budgets and revealing changes that can be made.
New England Climate Stories
Museum of Science, USA
Explores three ecosystems representing New England’s most biodiverse environments (coast, forest, and city) and how the climate crisis is changing the habitats and lives of plants and animals across New England
Gaia
Museum of Science, Boston USA
Artwork using detailed NASA imagery of the Earth’s surface can give viewers a ‘profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment’ as described about astronauts’ experiences. Follow the link here.
Energy Revolution: The Adani Green Energy Gallery
Science Museum, London UK. Opening 2023
Funded by the Adani mining, gas and infrastructure company, this exhibition will explore the latest climate science and examine how the world will undergo the quickest energy transition in history, in order to tackle climate change. Follow the link here.
Climate and Inequality
Climate Museum New York. June - October 2022
Explores intersecting crises of climate and inequality, and how this joint crisis is presented locally, nationally and globally. Asks how we can move forward. Follow the link here.
The Flag Project
Climate Museum New York. 1 April - 6 May + 5 June 2022.
Artists worldwide are invited to submit their own art on climate action and the environment. Winning designs will be flown as flags surrounding Rockefeller Plaza. Follow the link here.
Our Future Planet
Science Museum, London UK. 19 May 2021 - September 2022.
Exploring technologies being developed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, including their challenges. Looking into the difference such technologies could make, what can be done with carbon dioxide after it’s been captured, and why we can’t just plant more trees. Follow the link here.
Climate Change Exhibitions
A chronology of exhibitions dealing with global warming/ climate change/ Anthropocene.
Image from Human Nature, Världskultur Museerna, Gotherburg
2021
Arctic: Culture & Climate
British Museum, Aug 2020-Feb 2021
Arctic: Culture & Climate, British Museum https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/arctic-culture-and-climate/360-tour/
2021
Reimagining Museums for Climate Action exhibition
June 2021- throughout COP, Glasgow Science Centre
So far, the exhibition has been seen by c.60k people!
During COP26, 3,000 tickets will be available each day for members of the public to visit the Glasgow Science Centre. As part of the official Green Zone, the exhibition will also be open to delegates to COP26 itself. More information about COP26 coming soon
2021-
Our Broken Planet: How we got here and ways to fix it
Natural History Museum, London
The natural world is in crisis. As our demand for food, materials and energy soars, forests are becoming farmland, plastic is filling our oceans and the climate is heating fast.
In the run up to the global UN conferences of COP15 on biodiversity and COP26 on climate change, join us as we debate why and how our relationship with the natural world needs to change. The programme includes a free display at the Museum, online events and articles which delve into the issues we face.
(c) Natural History Museum
September 2021 - August 2022
Environmental Injustice
Indigenous Peoples’ Alternatives
Geneva, Switzerland
An extensive exhibition of video stories from indigenous people from around the world and their connections to nature and environmental injustice. The exhibition also features object-centred stories. There is an interactive Story Map with the exhibiton.
Amiilgm Sm’ooygit Hoon Salmon Mask
by Gyibaawm Laxha – David R. Boxley (1981-). Ts’msyen United States, Alaska
Alder wood, acrylic paint. Made in 2020 for the exhibition MEG Inv. ETHAM 068762 © David R. Boxley
June 2021 - october 2021
Spark - Australian Innovations tackling climate change
Sydney, australia
Australia has a long history of developing amazing ideas. From First Nations innovators to the inventors of Wi-Fi, our thinkers have led the way. And now, they're taking on one of our greatest challenges: climate change.
In this new showcase, learn about inventions and innovative approaches offering positive solutions to the climate crisis. See some of the technology and practices Australians are working on to reduce pollution, create affordable and clean energy, support the richness of plant and animal life, and ensure a livable future for all.
Granville Harbour wind farm in Tasmania. The wind farm is helping power the State to 100% renewables. Photo, Granville Harbour Wind Farm 2021.
Edward Burtynsky, Phosphor Tailings Pond #4, Near Lakeland, Florida, USA, 2012.
Anthropocene is a multimedia exhibition that investigates the impact of human footprint on the Earth. It documents how humanity changes the planet forever. In the exhibition, the artists Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier, through photography, film, augmented reality and scientific research, have created an exhibition that documents how humanity changes the planet forever. The exhibition tells about the consequences of human impact on the planet's natural processes and takes us to places that.
Arctic - culture and climate
October 22, 2020 – February 21, 2021
The British Museum, London, UK
From ancient mammoth ivory sculpture to modern refitted snow mobiles, the objects in this immersive exhibition reveal the creativity and resourcefulness of Indigenous Peoples in the Arctic. Developed in collaboration with Arctic communities, the exhibition celebrates the ingenuity and resilience of Arctic Peoples throughout history. It tells the powerful story of respectful relationships with icy worlds and how Arctic Peoples have harnessed the weather and climate to thrive. The dramatic loss of ice and erratic weather caused by climate change are putting unprecedented pressure on Arctic Peoples, testing their adaptive capacities and threatening their way of life. What happens in the Arctic will affect us all and this exhibition is a timely reminder of what the world can learn from its people.
What are you seeing in our climate-changed corner of the world? Check out our monthly guest contributors and share your views with the #CapturingClimateChange online gallery.
2020
Rising Tide
From 3 April 2020
Museum of the City of New York
Rising sea levels affect us all. In honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, Rising Tide presents works by Dutch documentary photographer Kadir van Lohuizen that illustrate the dramatic consequences of the climate crisis across the world through photographs, video, drone images, and sound. Experience the effects of rising sea levels in Greenland, Bangladesh, Papua-New Guinea, Kiribati, Fiji, the Netherlands, the U.K., Marshall Islands, Jakarta, Panama, Miami, and our own neighborhoods here in New York.
2019 - 2020
The Animals are Innocent
an exhibit to lament climate change
September 20, 2019-January 11, 2020
Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont, Vermont, USA
Intricately detailed hand crafted folk art toy boats full of animals and engaging paintings whimsically pull viewers into a world where water has displaced animal habitat. In tippy canoe and migrants to?, several dozen white rabbits are crowded into a lushly carved canoe on wheels. Another has a fox steering a forest nestled in a boat to safer harbor in parts unknown. Story text accompanies each boat, explaining the predicament that will be faced by its passengers.
The exhibit begins with the following words:
A long story has been written since the first bits of life began here on earth.
This is the chapter where we face ourselves.
The show runs in the Henry Sheldon through January 11, 2020.
2019 - 2020
EcoLogic
On now until 30 June 2020
Powerhouse Museum, Ultimo, NSW, AUstralia
EcoLogic explores one of the world’s hottest topics today: climate change. Discover the science behind global warming, learn what we can do to slow it down and what we can do to adapt to the changes already taking place. Scientists predict a warmer Earth in the near future, with more acidic oceans, wilder weather and rising sea levels.
2019
Wind + Solar: The Renewable Energy Revolution
Permanent Exhibition
miSci Museum of Innovation and Science, Schenectady, New York, USA
Introducing Wind and Solar: The Renewable Energy Revolution – an interactive exhibit sponsored by GE Renewable Energy.
The exhibit will encourage visitors’ understanding of renewable energy technology and climate change factors, while inspiring advocacy for renewable solutions to society’s ever-increasing energy demands.
2019
Solar Guerrilla: Constructive Responses to Climate Change
Until 22 February 2020
Tel Aviv
Between climate fiction (cli-fi) and social uprisings, between planning “sponge cities” and solar trees, as extreme climate changes become global urgent issues, Capitalism’s destructive environmental effects become clearer. The exhibition deals with the City as a tool for change; it presents study cases from such cities as Chicago, Masdar City, Hong Kong, London, Copenhagen, Shanghai, Tel Aviv and New York.
2019
hall of planet earth updates
The American Museum of Natural History is re-opening its climate change exhibit in the David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth with comprehensive updates to a section about one of the most urgent scientific issues of our time. The new installation, which opened to the public on Saturday, July 7, is anchored by a dynamic media wall featuring large-scale imagery, animations, text and graphics, and interactive panels where visitors can engage with the evidence for climate change. Updates, which have been in planning and development since 2016, also include new content in the hall’s sections on past climates as well as on convection.
2019
climate change
Harvard Museum of Natural History
Harvard Museum of Natural History has created a new exhibition, Climate Change drawing on the latest scientific information about our warming climate, the global and local consequences, and how to both reduce the fossil fuel emissions that cause it and prepare for its effects. This multimedia exhibit includes engaging video and storm simulations, a “check your knowledge” interactive station, and a dramatic inside look at a high-tech Argo float from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, one of more than 4,000 deployed worldwide to monitor global oceans and climate. Developed in collaboration with the Harvard University Center for the Environment and informed by new Harvard research, the exhibit offers visitors the unfettered facts - the knowns and unknowns - about one of the most challenging problems the world has ever faced.
2019
Human Nature
8 Feb 2019 - May 2020.
Världskultur Museerna (Museum of World Culture), Gothenburg, Sweden. Thereafter: Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm.
Conveying messages of major threats, and messages with strong hope. 'Based on objects from the vast collections of the Museums of World Culture, as well as several ongoing scientific projects, the exhibition takes on the most burning question of our time. “It's all connected. How we live our lives is closely related to the state of our earth.” '
Human Nature does not ignore the huge problems we are facing. Mass consumption has created a world that threatens essential and sensitive systems.
-This is not just a dark and sad story, said Lena Stammarnäs, exhibition curator of Human Nature. There's a lot of hope through all the initiatives that are created around the world, and hopefully the visitor will be inspired. As consumer and citizen, you can make a difference – we can all contribute to change through the choices we make.
2019
Weather to Climate - touring exhibition.
February 2nd - April 28th 2019
First venue: Bell Museum, University of Minnesota, St Paul, MN, USA
Developed to educate students and families about weather and climate, the exhibition serves as a platform for visitors to easily digest the ever-relevant topic of today - climate change. Through light and approachable methods, visitors will take away important learnings from their experience in hopes of instituting small changes in their every day lives. The Exhibition Includes: Interactive displays, Young meteorologist/news anchor on-camera experience, weather simulations, climate labs, education video games, immersive environment.
2018-2019
Anthropocene
September 28, 2018 to February 24, 2019
National Gallery of Canada, Ottowa, Canada
’A major contemporary art exhibition’, stunning presentation of photographic prints and high-definition murals by Edward Burtynsky, and film installations by Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier, ‘Anthropocene explores the effects of human activity on the planet in artworks that are at once subtle and striking.’ ‘Visitors can also immerse themselves in areas undergoing rapid change, thanks to augmented reality installations and visitor-activated films.’ The exhibition is part of The Anthropocene Project.
2018
Heritage Futures
Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, UK
Heritage Futures is based on the Heritage Futures research project, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. The project, and exhibition, consider how we can build the future with heritage. This takes the viewpoint that all forms of heritage are ultimately about future-making, and the decisions we make today make possible futures possible or not. How can we deal with profusion in society and in museums? How can we ensure the future is full of natural and cultural diversity? How can we hold onto value when heritage is transforming? And how can we deal with the challenge of uncertainty in the future?
2018
METIS - “We Know Not What We Can Be”
6-9 Sept 2018
Barbican, London, UK
part of Season for Change: Inspiring Creative Actions on Climate Change. (Installation)
Following a short talk by an inspiring speaker, visitors were led into : “ the 'factory of the future' – an installation for storytelling, interaction and experimentation that could catapult us towards a transformative future. Working with a host of inspirational experts, among them economists, architects and environmentalists, Zoë Svendsen aim[ed] to initiate conversation, challenge our sense of what is possible, and find ways in which we can all take an active part in determining how we live together. A theatre-maker, dramaturg and Director of METIS, Svendsen develops absorbing, engaging and funny performance projects that highlight contemporary political subjects. “ (from the Metis website)
2018
Under the arctic: digging into permafrost
Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), portland oregon. from Fall 2018, touring thereafter.
Dig into what lies beneath the Arctic with the vast and fascinating world of permafrost! Under the Arctic: Digging Into Permafrost transports visitors to the Arctic using the sights and smells of the world’s only permafrost research tunnel, with Ice Age fossils.
2018
Michael Pinsky's Pollution domes
Somerset House, London, UK
Five transparent interlinked domes; visitors enter a dome that contains the very pure air of Tautra, the peninsular on the coast of Norway where the project originated. From here they can walk through the installation to experience what the air is like in London, Beijing, São Paulo and New Dehli.
2018
In Human Time
An exhibition in two parts.
ZARIA FORMAN; Whale Bay, Antarctica, No. 4; December 20, 2017–January 15, 2018
PEGGY WEIL; 88 Cores; January 19–February 11, 2018
The Climate Museum's first exhibition, In Human Time, featured installations by Zaria Forman and Peggy Weil, and explored intersections of polar ice, humanity, and time. For more information on the show and its associated events, visit the In Human Time website.
In Human Time was presented in partnership with the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at the Parson School of Design, the New School.
2017
Climate Change in Our World
Wilson Center, Washington, D.C., USA
Photographs by Gary Braasch.
'Gary Braasch's photographic exhibition "Climate Change in Our World" enjoyed an extended run at the Boston Museum of Science from June 22, 2013 through January 2, 2014. Thousands of museum visitors were engaged and educated by the photographs informed by information from scientific research, showing scientists at work collecting data, and locations ranging from the Arctic to Bangladesh and the Great Barrier Reef where climate change is already having an effect. The show's final images are of some of the actions being taken to reduce global warming pollution and limit the effects of climate change. Braasch, winner of the Ansel Adams Award, has been documenting climate change and its solutions since 1999 in his project “World View of Global Warming.” '
2017
We Are Nature: Living in the Anthropocene
Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, USA
'The Anthropocene is the current geological era in which humans are making a profound impact on the geological strata. Geologists are still debating the term, but here at the museum, we are embracing it as a social and cultural tool for exploring the broad sum effect humans are having on the environment.
To put it simply, people are changing the planet. We’ll be exploring the good, the bad, and the ugly truths of the Anthropocene for the next six months with the new exhibition We Are Nature: Living in the Anthropocene, which opens October 28 at the museum.'
2016
Climate Control
Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, UK
Climate Control was developed as a partnership with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and Manchester Climate Change Agency, which develops and oversees delivery of climate change policy in the city. The exhibition was staged to contribute to Manchester’s time as European City of Science. The Climate Control exhibition encouraged visitors to position themselves within the rhetoric of climate change: the exhibition had two entrances, to explore the past or the future. Throughout the exhibition, visitors contributed by answering questions on their views on climate change, and taking part in interactives to include their personal (and collective) carbon footprint, and their ideas for a more sustainable future.
Review of Climate Control by Ella Milburn, The State of the Arts
2016
Earth Objective: Living the Anthropocene
Musée de la Nature du Valais, Sion, Switzerland
"Objectif Terre" is a pioneering exhibition that thematises and makes sensitive the notion of Anthropocene. The immersive, dynamic and colourful staging, conceived by the artist Marie Velardi, integrates perfectly with the messages conveyed. An appropriate form and background that adds originality and attractiveness to this exhibition, and which invites, the time of a visit, to question its way of considering nature.
2015
Human Origins: Climate Change and Human Evolution
National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian, Washington DC, USA
Exhibition on human population, environmental change, within hall of human origins (controversial due to Koch family sponsorship)
Misleading Interactives, 3D graphs, stats, etc. Global story. No individuals.
2015
Earth Lab: Degrees of Change
Koshland Science Museum, Washington, DC, USA
Science exhibition.
Human aspects of story are minimal, sanitised
2015
Bill Nye’s Climate Lab Exhibit
Chabot Space and Science Center, Oakland, CA, USA
Modern civilization has given the Earth a bit of a fever, and it’ll take more than acetaminophen to break it. Let Bill Nye the "Climate Guy" show you how to cure an over-warm planet, tame monster storms, detox the oceans and keep continental ice sheets where they belong - on continents! Ice is nice...
Focused on younger audience
2015
Living with the Ocean
Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute, BERMUDA
Interactive exhibition exploring the problems facing the world’s oceans and some solutions – focused on ocean and ocean life.
2014 – 2016
Willkommen im Anthropozän/Welcome to the Anthropocene
December 5, 2014 to January 31, 2016
Deutsches Museum, Berlin, Germany
Together with the Rachel Carson Center and in cooperation with Haus der Kulturen der Welt , the Deutsches Museum is currently planning a major special exhibition on the "Anthropocene“. Coined by the atmospheric chemist and Nobel Prize laureate Paul J. Crutzen, the term describes the idea of a new geological era starting around 1800 and following the Holocene which is shaped by the deep interventions into nature by humans as biological and geological agents.
2014 – 2015
Climate Change in Our World II
Exhibited in Munich and Brussels, 2014, and traveling in Europe, 2015
A new version of Gary Braasch's colour print exhibition "Climate Change in Our World," – art exhibition
Focused on changing landscapes - locations of the photographs include the Arctic, high mountain regions such as the Himalayas and the Alps, Peru, North America, China, Kenya, Australia and Antarctica. Images were updated for the show, including new repeat photography of glaciers in the Andes and Alps. The captions are detailed descriptions connecting the science, effects and solutions to local issues,
2014 - 2015
Nature’s Fury: The science of natural disasters
American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA
Interactives. Tells stories of impacts of Hurricane Katrina and Cyclone Evan – considers impacts on communities. Some artefacts from Katrina.
2014
The Jockey Museum of Climate Change, Hong Kong
The Chinese University of Hong Kong. HOng KONG
Exhibition within the Jockey Museum of Climate Change: Climate Change and Its Impact
Theatre piece: The Drama of Climate Change
2014
Climate Change, Climate Challenge
Science Center, Singapore
8 zones: science focus for most.
zone 2 - ‘impacts’ is about coral reefs
zone 7 - about the ‘eco home’ – green technology
zone 8 - Singapore’s action plan
What will life in Singapore be like with climate change and global warming? Or, anywhere else in the world? This exhibition aims to bring this 21st Century planet-wide challenge to our visitors by relating the science and the experts’ projections of possible local effects.
2014
Climate + Change
International Mountain Museum, Pokhara;
Kathmandu early 2014; Pokara 27 Sept 2014
The exhibition features science and imagery from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and striking photography from David Breashears, GlacierWorks and other Nepali photographers that showcase the rapidly changing Himalayas and highlight solutions being implemented in the region. The exhibition is traveling to Pokhara after it was shown in Kathmandu for five months in early 2014.
2013 - 2014
Carbon 14: Climate is Culture
Cape Farewell and Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada
Artworks
2013 - 2014
Rising Waters: Photographs of Sandy
Museum of the City of New York, New York with the International Center of Photography, USA
Emotive, focused on impacts on individuals and their homes, their streets, and neighbourhoods
Presented to mark the one-year anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, Rising Waters draws on work submitted by over a thousand photographers, both professional and amateur, who responded to an open call for images in the storm's wake. The juried exhibition features striking before-and-after images of the hurricane's impact on the New York region, including preparations, the storm's destructive effects, and the ongoing rebuilding efforts.
Website lists a phone number to call to ‘share your stories’: 3 minute recording
2013
Weird Weather, NY State travelling exhibition for rural audiences
Museum of the Earth, Ithaca, NY, USA
2013
Unfold
Beijing, China
Art exhibition – all of the artists have been to places affected by climate change/documented it – all art created in response to experiences (cool segment in article about an artificial diamond created from a polar bear bone – which is more important: the diamond or the polar bear?)
Traveled to Vienna, and has also been shown in New York, London and Chicago
2013
Climate Change Miami
A multiscreen and multiuser exhibit created with the Miami Science Museum
Scientific data, photographs and video; has controllable 4-foot Magic Planet spherical display, four large display monitors, and three independent kiosk stations for visitor interaction. http://ideum.com/creative-services/climate-change-miami-2/
2013
The Drowning Room
By Reynold Reynolds and Patrick Jolley, displayed at EXPO1, Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, USA
Rain installation
2012 - 2013
Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya
MIT Museum, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
2012-2013
Our Global Kitchen: Food, Nature, Culture
American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA
Includes some climate change content
2012
Seasons of Change: Global warming in your backyard
Peabody Museum, Yale
Photographs, interactive, local artifacts
2012
earth science exhibition
Perot Museum of Nature and Science, Dallas, USA
Not displayed: a ‘Climate Change’ panel in earth science exhibit
e.g. of reluctance of museums across the USA to discuss how human activities are altering the climate:
4-by-2.5-foot panel titled "Climate Change" was supposed to have appeared, providing an explanation of the trapping of Co2 and warming of the atmosphere. It included statements about humans burning fossil fuels contributing to this process. It was dropped from the show.
2011
Living Worlds
Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, UK
Living Worlds was developed as a new type of natural history gallery, really a natural futures gallery. The purpose of the gallery is to encourage visitors to consider their personal and collective relationships with nature, and the ways they use/consume/experience nature. The gallery draws on work by the late Stephen Kellert (sociologist and conservationist, formerly of Yale University), to explore different human attitudes to nature, which underpin personal behavior and beliefs. Climate change, biodiversity, personal experience, consumption of natural resources, and disasters are all explored, and can be explored across the various installations.
2010
Then & Now: The Changing Arctic Landscape
Museum of the North, University of Alaska (Fairbanks, Alaska), USA
2010
Then & Now travelling exhibit
Managed by the Burke Museum, Seattle, USA
23 large-format framed photos [10 sets of photo pairs and 3 singles], 12 labels, 16 framed graphic panels, 5 Arctic indigenous resident quote panels, and a DVD containing the 360-degree Arctic Panorama interactive program, Elders Speak/Portraits of Change presentation, Permafrost and Discovering Past Temperatures animations
2009-2010
Climate Change in Our World
November 10, 2009 to April 30, 2010
American Association for the Advancement of Science Hq Atrium, Washington DC, USA
Exhibition of large-scale colour photographs available for museums and science centres after extended display in Boston, 2014-2014.
2010
Hot Pink Flamingos: Stories of Hope in a Changing Sea
Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, California, USA
“…connects our visitors with the ocean and climate change through engaging live exhibits of compelling animals and interpretive graphics and activities. The exhibition reflects our visitors’ current understanding and relationship to climate change, communicates that there is hope— that people can make a difference by working together and taking action—and identifies specific actions they can take to address climate change”
Using ocean wildlife to stress the impacts of climate change
2009
Climate Change: our future, our choice
Australian Museum, Sydney, Australia
Then a Climate Change traveling exhibit
Climate change: our future, our choice
Western Australian Museum
2009
Earth: Art of a Changing World
Royal Academy of Art, London, UK
“It’s about art, and contemporary artists. The issue – the science – is sitting underneath it. We wanted to create an exhibition that wasn’t literal in any sense. There aren’t any icebergs or polar bears in the show. We wanted it to have an element of looking to the future – hopefulness, as opposed to death, doom and destruction.” There’s a small amount of familiar work there, such as the inclusion of Gormley’s famous “Field” of little fired-clay people (in its Amazonian version). But most of the work is new, or new-ish.
So: it’s a brave move by the RA, and one which will doubtless attract its fair share of criticism for either doom-mongering (strongly denied by Soriano) or political correctness. I’m all in favour. After all the media, scientific and political frenzy surrounding climate change, I’m very happy to let artists provide an alternative view. And just as happy to see both sides of the RA working together at last.
© Hugh Pearman. First published in The Sunday Times, London, 22 November 2009, as “What on Earth is this?”
2008 - 2009
Climate Change: The threat to life and a new energy future
American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA
Review ‘Apocalypse Now, via diorama’
2008
The Last Days of Shishmaref
Rotterdam, Netherlands
Photographs alongside a spatial montage of film scenes. “…the climate was a backdrop for the histories of people, of a community, of a life in all its paradoxical intricacies”
2008
Nature Unleashed
Traveling Exhibit, Field Museum, Chicago, USA
To understand how natural phenomena work, interactive displays and animations let you trigger an earthquake, simulate a tsunami, generate a virtual volcano, and stand within the center of a roaring tornado. Images, artifacts, and inspiring survivor stories then bring home the realities of recent disasters by revealing how people adapt to living at risk. So prepare yourself for a memorable and powerful experience as Nature Unleashed immerses you in the forces of geology and weather that have shaped our planet and our lives.
2008
Waters of Tuvalu: Nation at Risk
Immigration Museum in Melbourne, Australia
“The curators and organizers were members of the Tuvaluan community in Melbourne including Tito Tapungao, Fikau Teponga, and members of the Melbourne chapter of the Tuvaluan expat organization Kaiga Tuvalu. Geographer and environmental activist Rob Gell also contributed. The intended audience was both Tuvaluan immigrants and the Australian public.” - quoted from Peter Rudiak-Gould, in J. Newell, L. Robin and K. Wehner (eds) Curating the Future: Museums, Communities and Climate Change (Routledge).
2007-2008
Water: H2O = Life
American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA
Includes climate change content.
2007
Feeling the Heat: The Climate Challenge
Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego (La Jolla, California), USA
2006
Atmosphere: Change is in the Air
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, USA
The exhibition explores the chemistry, properties, and significance of earth’s atmosphere—the invisible envelope that surrounds and affects us all. http://forces.si.edu/atmosphere/index.html
2006
Arctic, a Friend Acting Strangely
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC, USA
The exhibit’s story of the changing Arctic is illustrated by a rich array of objects from the Smithsonian’s collections, supplemented by photographs, video footage, satellite animations, graphic illustrations, and computer interactive exploration stations.
There is a small mention of global warming in the exhibit, but the potential human causes of the melting arctic are not explored.
2003-2004
Forces of Change
September 2003 – September 2004
Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, USA
Global Links: a range of programs and exhibitions. Including: El Nino's Powerful Reach, Arctic: A Friend Behaving Strangely, and others.
2002 –2003
Global LinkS
Smithsonian, DC, USA
Used the El Nino weather phenomenon to demonstrate the dynamic interrelations among the Earth's 4 components -- the geosphere (land), atmosphere (air), hydrosphere (water), and biosphere (life) -- and the effects of these components felt around the world.
Highlights included: a multi-screen presentation of ground-based and satellite images, including recent views of Earth taken from space; weekly updates of an El Nino "watch"; ancient Peruvian artifacts that demonstrate the far-reaching cultural effects of El Nino; interactive displays where visitors can explore the work of Smithsonian scientists.
2002
Climate, the Experiment with Planet Earth (“Klima: das Experiment mit dem Planeten Erde”)
Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany
A heap of coal and a steam engine, illustrating industrialisation as the root cause of the climate problem, greets the entering visitor. Elevated paths lined with sandbags lead through the exhibition.
The highlight of the final section is a smashed, muddy car that was fished out of a branch of the River Elbe after last summer's devastating floods. A source of carbon dioxide, destroyed in the forces it unleashed with its own emissions? Man's relationship with Earth's climate is an experiment that has got out of hand, the exhibition seems to imply.
The main emphasis of the show is on today's climate as a product of nature, technology and politics. A supercomputer next to a negotiation table brings home the interplay between modern research and international treaties. Mitigation and adaptation - the two ways of limiting climate damage - are encapsulated in a comparison of soil-tillage methods and a model of a flood-warning.
2000 & 2003
Polar Thaw
American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington DC (2000)
Science Museum of Minnesota, then Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago (fall 2003)
30-print exhibit of photographs from locations of Arctic and Antarctic climate warming.
Also exhibited at the Science Museum of Minnesota, then Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago - fall 2003
1998
Under the Sun: an Exhibition of Light
Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum (June 21-Nov. 1998) and then Smithsonian, Washington, DC (June 21-Sept. 1999).
1997
Understanding the Forecast: Global Warming,
American Museum of Natural History, New York (1992), then moved to Smithsonian (May-August 1997).
Interactive displays. 443,000 visitors. Note about the exhibition at the Smithsonian in the US Climate Action Report 2002.
1992
Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast
American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA
The AMNH held a major temporary exhibit Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast. During its eight-month run attracted over 700,000 visitors and subsequently traveled to many other venues.’ [Mike Novacek] The exhibition received the American Association of Museums Curators Award.
See: Eva Zelig and Stephanie L. Pfirman, ‘Handling a Hot Topic—Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast’ Curator: The Museum Journal 36
Annual and ongoing
The Climate Museum
New York
Director: Miranda Massie
Commentary –- a place for discussion. Artworks in public spaces.
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-museum-19341
Syngenta Photography Award Exhibition
“Rural-Urban: the exhibition” Somerset House, London
Submitted photograph categories: Urban Sprawl, Migration, Infrastructure, Greener Cities, Food Production and Deforestation (photography exhibition – all pieces related to the above themes)
2001-ongoing
Cape Farewell
Dana Center, Science Museum, London
David Buckland’s international cultural program
2001 – ongoing
Forces of Change
Smithsonian, USA
Nearly every scientific and social issue confronting us today involves change: climate change, ecological change, cultural change. What forces drive these changes? What is the tempo and mode of these changes? Are these changes natural or the result of human tampering? Are they to be feared or welcomed? How do we - and all life on this planet - adapt to these changes? Come and explore the answers to these and other important questions with us.