By Joan Sullivan

This post is part of an ongoing series of occasional musings about the larger context in which we currently find ourselves: an energy transition, of which there have been several throughout human history. I have chosen Barry Lord’s important book, Art & Energy: How Culture Changes as our guide, because it sheds much-needed light on the reciprocal relationship between art, artists, and energy transitions through the ages. I also draw inspiration from the emerging field of Energy Humanities, led by Imre Szeman and his colleagues at the University of Alberta and the University of Waterloo in Canada. For previous posts in this series, please check here.

My favorite chapter in Barry Lord’s book, Art & Energy: How Culture Changes, is about the world’s first energy crisis. For those of us who lived through the 1973 oil embargo, we would be forgiven for thinking that the world’s first energy crisis was about oil. In fact, the first energy crisis – emerging in the late 16th century and continuing through the early 18th – was about wood. 

Just stop for a minute and think about the limited choice of energy sources available to fuel human ingenuity since our earliest settlements. It was wood that fed the voracious appetites of the many fire-based industries invented by sapiens throughout the ages: salt works; Copper, Bronze and Iron age smelters and foundries; kilns for pottery, glassblowing and brick-making; ovens for bread; and open stoves to render tallow for soap and candle making. And let’s not forget the ubiquitous breweries! 

But it wasn’t just wood, as in logs or charcoal, that were in high demand. It was whole forests, as Lord soberly reminds us:

The production of steel sword blades required whole forests, especially as it became necessary to achieve higher and higher temperatures. Tin, the key ingredient of bronze, melts at 232°C, but copper needs more than 1,000°C, and iron has the highest melting point – 1,528°C. From the beginning of the Bronze and Iron Ages, one of the major reasons for deforestation even in climates that did not require so much firewood in the winter (e.g., in southern Europe), was this need for large quantities of wood to smelt metals.

The “age of wood” refers to the period that stretched from prehistory to the second half of the 18th century, according to the emerging field of Energy Humanities. I’m reminded of a scene in HBO’s award-winning Game of Thrones of a smoky, wood-fired forge in which Gendry, the bastard blacksmith, is testing one of his renowned swords in front of an unimpressed Arya. 

It’s difficult for most of us “moderns” to truly appreciate just how important wood was in pre-industrial societies. Wood was absolutely indispensable, both as a primary energy source and as an important building material; there was simply no other source of heat so readily accessible as a nearby forest. Wood could be credited for single-handedly fueling a cascade of technological and social advancements, including weapons of war, across several millennia. In Chapter 9, Lord cites an estimate that 90% of all trees cut down prior to 1800 were destined to be burned.

In addition to the fire-based industries, whole forests were burned to clear land for farms, for animal grazing, for mills and other development. Forests were also decimated for their timber. Large oaks in particular were prized for ships’ masts. Timber was also the material of choice to construct palaces, places of worship, barns, stables, and fences. Furniture, musical instruments, wagons, boats, and tools were all crafted from wood. And of course, wood was required for cooking and domestic heating. So it was only a matter of time until “a global forest that once was,” according to Shakespearean scholar Vin Nardizzi, was no more. 

By the end of the 16th century, the forests surrounding London had been stripped bare. “No wood, no Kingdome” was a cri de coeur published in a 1611 pamphlet that raised alarms about deforestation in late Elizabethan England. It is also the title of the opening chapter in Richard Rhodes’ captivating book Energy: A Human History. We learn that London’s severe wood shortage prompted Shakespeare and his friends, in 1598, to steal the timbers from their old playhouse (while the landlord was away) in order to build their new open-roofed, twenty-sided wooden polygon Globe Theatre on the other side of the Thames. A year later, the Globe opened with its first play: Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. 

According to Lord, although deforestation as a phenomenon was not new, societal concern about it was. He provides a few historical anecdotes that help us understand the growing tensions, starting in the later Middle Ages, between the ruling classes (nobility, monarchy) and commoners (peasants, serfs). The latter were routinely punished with imprisonment, torture, or execution if they were caught cutting wood for their own use on land that belonged to their overlords. However, there was one important exception to this ruling: when the wind blew down a large tree or broke off some of its branches, peasants were allowed to take the wood. Hence the expression “windfall” – an unexpected good fortune that must have meant so much to landless peasants.

These simmering tensions between commoners and the aristocracy inspired a new oral literary culture – in the form of ballads and legends such as Robin Hood stealing from wealthy land owners (i.e., those who controlled access to forests) and giving to the landless poor (no access to forests). 

By 1615, we see one of the earliest attempts at energy conversation: England’s King James I issued a ban on burning firewood for glass production by declaring that “the great waste of timber in making glass is a matter of serious concern.” 

One hundred years later, two alternative responses to the energy crisis were proposed in Germany, including finding alternatives to wood (such as peat and coal) and inventing new machines that could produce more heat with less wood. 

By the end of the 18th century, mounting anxiety about deforestation across Europe climaxed. Revolution was in the air. According to Lord, the widespread perception of crisis was linked to the privatization of land formerly owned by the commune and available to all: “the sense of uncertainty about the future led people to question the ancien régime, and also to acknowledge the possibility – finally the necessity – of a revolutionary change in the way society was ordered.” 

Sound familiar? We sapiens would be wise to learn from the past. Do 21st century citizens have the moxie, like our 18th century forebears, to radically change the way society is ordered? Looking back, we see how humanity has survived previous energy transitions, and it will undoubtedly do so again. Artists can help us get there more quickly, as they have since the age of wood.

Lord ends this chapter by preparing readers for the next energy transition: the transition from wood to coal, an energy source “that would soon shape our world more profoundly than any other.” While coal would effectively “solve” the energy crisis created by global deforestation, it would unleash its own environmental, climatic and public health challenges that persist to this day. The “age of coal” led inexorably to the “age of man” – the Anthropocene.

I will dive into the transition to coal and its associated “culture of production” in a future post.

(Top image by Joan Sullivan.)

This article is part of the Renewable Energy series.

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Joan Sullivan is a Canadian photographer focused on the energy transition. In her monthly column for Artists and Climate Change, Joan explores the intersection of art and the energy transition. She is currently experimenting with abstract photography as a new language to express her grief about climate breakdown. You can find Joan on Twitter and Visura.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

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By Susan Hoffman Fishman

Think About Water (TAW) is a newly-formed collective of 28 international eco-artists and activists whose work addresses global water issues. The organization has scheduled its first exhibition, also called â€œThink About Water,” to open today, March 22, in commemoration of World Water Day. (Please see details about the opening reception below.) Originating in 1993, World Water Day celebrates water, calls attention to the 2.2 billion people around the world without access to clean water, and urges individuals to become engaged in efforts to combat the global water crisis. Similarly, the goal of TAWand its member artists is to “interpret, celebrate, and defend water.” 

Think About Water is the brainchild of its founder, Fredericka Foster. The idea to create a group of artists who are passionate about water derived from her experience guest curating a large-scale exhibition titled “The Value of Water,” which was held at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City in 2011. Surrounded by 200 works of art on water-related issues, she experienced a profound sense of awe and spiritual connection to this basic element of life. Notable artists in the Cathedral exhibition included, among many others, video artist Bill Viola, conceptual artist Jenny Holtzer, multi-disciplinary artist Robert Longo, and painter/printmaker Pat Steir.

Over the years, Foster stayed informed about and connected with some of the artists in the show and, in the back of her mind, was thinking about developing a formal organization that would provide a supportive community for them (and her). She subsequently became a water activist and devoted her own work as a painter to “our relationship to water; its physicality and resonance in the body; its environmental and socioeconomic forces, psychological meaning, and transformative properties.”

In early 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closings of museums and galleries and cut artists off from any physical social contact, Foster had the time to realize her plan. She hoped to create a virtual group that would provide companionship during this time of extreme isolation, a clearing house for resources and information, and a collective voice that could advocate for relevant water concerns. She grew the group primarily through word of mouth and the suggestions of member artists. (Full disclosure: I am a proud member of TAW.) This past year, Think About Water sponsored a postcard project aimed at encouraging voter turnout for the 2020 presidential election using the non-partisan phrase “Vote for Water,” and began planning its first exhibition.

“Think About Water,” (the exhibition) is a three-month virtual show presented through an interactive VR gallery, curated by TAW artist Doug Fogelson. The 23 participating artists represented in the exhibition have years of experience and powerful bodies of acclaimed work pertaining to a range of global water issues. They are painters, photographers, filmmakers, as well as mixed media, social engagement, performance, land, and installation artists who have a sustained commitment to and respect for water. In addition to showing the works of art in a gallery-like space, the exhibition includes brief explanations of the pieces by each artist and a link to their individual websites.  

Fogelson admitted that his job as curator was made easier by the fact that he was curating artwork by artists who had already been curated into the collective rather than seeking them out on his own. His other curatorial experiences include the exhibition “Water in Art” at the Fresh Water Lab, University of Illinois at Chicago, which was developed in conjunction with the academic symposium, “Water After Borders;” and most notably, as a co-founder of the Filter Space Gallery in Chicago, a nonprofit site supporting the photographic community in the Midwest.

Four TAW artists, representing a range of approaches to the topic of water and using a wide variety of materials, met with me recently via Zoom to discuss their work in the exhibition.

LEILA DAW 

In her mixed-media painting, We Cling to Beauty While the World Around Us Falls Apart, New Haven-based artist Leila Daw combines Burmese tapestry and acrylic to depict the drainage basin of a great river. The pure water and pristine forests dotted with indigenous settlements at the top of the painting deteriorate into mud and destruction towards the middle and bottom of the piece with allusions to industrial sewage and other manmade interventions. Daw uses Burmese tapestry regularly in her work and for many years traveled on an annual basis to Myanmar to purchase the product. She stumbled upon the material while she was visiting the country for the first time and realized that its golden thread and metallic sequins are reminiscent of sparkling water and would be perfect for what she wanted to convey. Daw also utilizes the beautiful cloth to seduce the viewer into looking closely at her paintings instead of being turned away immediately by the seriousness of the ecological destruction she addresses. 

LAUREN ROSENTHAL MCMANUS

For Middle Delaware â€“ Musconetcong Drawing, Lauren Rosenthal McManus also uses a map to depict a portion of a river basin, but in contrast to Daw’s objectives, her intention is to encourage viewers to recognize the fractal connections between their own vascular systems and river ecologies. Working with natural materials, including rocks and soils from the locations in which her work is exhibited, she makes her own pigments. Her subtractive drawing process mimics erosion to “evoke the way that rivers mark their paths on the earth.” She installed Middle Delaware – Musconetcong Drawing directly onto the wall at Artyard in Frenchtown, New Jersey. Her map, which originally measured 12’ tall by 8’ wide, contains no boundaries imposed upon the land by political entities and so flows without artificial borders. McManus is especially interested in engaging with local community members in urban environments using participatory activities in order to strengthen their connections to the land. 

LISA REINDORF

Lisa Reindorf draws upon her background as both an architect and artist to create paintings that address the conflict between manmade and natural environments. In Tsunami City, the rigid geometric forms of buildings in an unnamed city contrast with the wild movement of the sea, which is encroaching upon the unnatural structures. Having grown up in Central Mexico, Reindorf is drawn to the bold and vibrant colors that are its artistic heritage and has always been aware of the importance of barrier beaches that protect the natural shoreline. In the battle between nature and manmade interventions, “it is nature,” she says, “that always wins.”  

NAOE SUZUKI

Blue by  Naoe Suzuki  holds special meaning for the Boston-based artist. Dating back to 2011, it was the first work of art that she made relating to water. That year, she spent a month at the Blue Mountain Center’s artist residency in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. Swimming daily in very cold lake water, she experienced what she refers to as its cleansing and healing powers. She also began thinking about the bodies of water throughout the world that were not in this pristine condition because they had been impacted adversely by pollution and the climate crisis. The drawing that emerged represented her newfound commitment to exploring the environment and addressing water-related issues. Ten feet long and made using mineral pigment, walnut ink, and tea on paper, Blue references the tradition of Japanese scrolls, telling a story in which water plays a central role. 

Additional artists in the exhibition include Diane Burko, Betsy Damon, Rosalyn Driscoll, Giana Pilar Gonzalez, Susan Hoffman Fishman, Fritz Horstman, Basia Irland, Ellen Kozak, Stacy Levy, Anna McLeod, Ilana Manolson, Randal Nichols Jaanika Peerna, Aviva Rahmani, Meridel Rubenstein, Linda Troeller and Adam Wolpert.

OPENING RECEPTION AND EXHIBITION EVENTS

One of the advantages of hosting a virtual opening reception is the ability to include colleagues, friends, and interested individuals from all over the world. The opening reception for “Think About Water” is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. (EDT) on Monday, March 22. All of the participating artists will speak very briefly (1 minute each) about their work, after which there will be time for questions and social interaction. Additional events, including panel discussions related to the exhibition’s theme, will be announced through social media and on the collective’s website. 

Click here for more info about the exhibition or to RSVP for the opening reception. 

All images courtesy of the artists.

This article is part of Imagining Water, a series on artists of all genres who are making the topic of water and climate disruption a focus of their work and on the growing number of exhibitions, performances, projects and publications that are appearing in museums, galleries and public spaces around the world with water as a theme.

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Susan Hoffman Fishman is a painter, public artist and writer whose work has been exhibited widely in museums and galleries throughout the U.S. Since 2011, all of her paintings, installations and photographs have addressed water and climate change. She co-created a national, participatory public art project, The Wave, which addresses our mutual need for and interdependence on water and which has inspired thousands of adults and children of all ages, abilities and backgrounds to protect this vital resource. Her most recent body of work calls attention to the growing number of rampikes along our shores – trees that have been exposed to salt water and died as a result of rising tides.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

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By Mary Woodbury

This month we travel to the world of Botswana author Tlotlo Tsamaase, whose short story “Eclipse Our Sins” rocked me in a good way. You can read it at Clarkesworld. I featured this story in my last article at Medium, Part II of my Around the World in 80 Books series, which examines climate- and ecological-themed fiction from everywhere. I was so happy to finally touch base with Tlotlo and talk about “Eclipse” as well as her other writing and work. “Eclipse Our Sins” cries out against the grotesque evolution of our world and how nature has been suffocated in the hands of takers and users. It’s a brilliant, riveting prose-like story in which stark imagery comes alive, painting a crime-ridden place where evil-doings against natural landscape and culture go hand in hand.

CHAT WITH THE AUTHOR

Your writing includes fiction (mostly speculative or horror), poetry, and architectural articles. I attended an Ecocity summit in Vancouver, British Columbia, so I was drawn to that architectural aspect of your work and would love it if you could talk some about eco-cities.

I’m going to outright quote an article I wrote some years back for Boidus Focus, a local built-environment newspaper, which is a bit relevant to this question: “Eco-cities illustrate the scramble to reinvent cities in juxtaposition to their sibling-cities with a core focus on sustainability. Eco-cities are synonymous to built-from-scratch, self-reliant satellite cities that maintain an eco-friendly environment from which everyone can lead healthy and economic lifestyles. Ultimately, this would mitigate the congestion in urban areas. As such, there is the escalating environmental concern regarding global population, which is estimated to reach around 10 billion in 2050 from its current 7-billion state. On a larger scale, eco-cities have been experimented with, like Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, PlanIT Valley in Portugal, Tianjin Eco-city in China, Amanora Hills in India, etc. Other African eco-cities are Konza Techno City in Nairobi (claimed as Africa’s Silicon Valley), Appolonia in Ghana, Roma Park in Zambia and Angola’s ghost town Luanda is Nova Cidade de Kilamba, amongst a few.”

The unfortunate thing is that sometimes these big ideas are hemmed in by corruption and an abandonment of the very sustainable ideas a country is trying to uphold. This keeps out the necessary professionals or even the issues on the ground – like poverty – and ultimately the eco-city either becomes a ghost town or less sustainable than it set out to be.

Can you describe what gives impulse to your fiction and poetry?

Firstly, writing comes from a place of passion. And most often it’s a need to process issues in our world – racism, climate change, gender-based violence, culture, technology etc. – in a way that is consumable to a reader through plot and characterization. But the interesting thing is manipulating our reality by exploring an alternative world and its ideas. Writing is also a blank page to paint your pain across, a very cathartic experience depending on the topic and themes. The beauty of writing allows one to read from different perspectives and see how the other side of the world lives or dreams. These, I believe, give me ideas that trigger me to start writing.

When I researched for a recent article at Medium, which goes around the world exploring eco-fiction, I walked away with great discoveries, which is how I found your story “Eclipse Our Sins.” The article spotlights 10-12 pieces of fiction from every continent. Trying to sample the continent of Africa is interesting, as works are so diverse. Some of the common themes I’ve seen include colonialism, the spiritual world, and speculative fiction such as Africanfuturism. Where do you write from, and how do place and environment inform your writing?

I write from many places. The thing about speculative fiction is you can bend reality and create an entirely different universe by either extrapolating our current-day issues or turning them on their head and seeing how that affects a family, a character, or even a village. Basically, I try to analyze the micro and macro parts of our world, whilst dissecting emotions through the lens of climate change. In one way, a writer can create a utopian universe, freeing its characters from the oppressive conflicts of our current reality, although conflict always rises. In another way, writers can process the dark side of our world. â€œMurders Fell From Our Wombs” comes to mind, a horror that explores gender-based violence in a murderous village. One tries to analyze the psychology of abuse, racism, and its effect on the person, the community.

My first year studying architecture was such a culture shock; we didn’t know what it took to turn buildings into reality. What it takes to root architecture to a place is the environment, the land, the people, the culture. A building either ignores these elements or embraces them. We’d go out to a site to analyze and document the culture of the area as well as the natural environment, such as topography, wind and rain, soil details, the patterns of people’s movements, their daily activities, local materials, culture, and rituals. If we didn’t respond in any way to this analysis, our lecturers called our designs “floating designs;” they could literally be put anywhere in the world and you wouldn’t be able to tell where they came from or who they were for. Our designs – as I try with my writing – had to be rooted to place, one way or another. If we ignored the place, it had to be for a good reason.

I try to explore that in some of my writing because that is how I was taught to process ideas and develop them. You have to ask yourself, what is this place where the character lives? What is their background, their motive, and their conflict? What issues exist that prevent them from reaching their goal? How did they grow up, what are their culture and rituals like? What would happen if you fused the traditional element of this place with technology? What would become of it and the people, and would it change them for the better or for worse? A person’s belief system also influences how they behave. You have to understand a character’s belief system, and most often it is tied to the land, the plants, the trees, etc. Also, nature is free. For example, a passive-designed building can use its environment for cooling (reducing heating and cooling costs). It can use deciduous trees to block the summer sun and let in the winter sun, or to redirect winds, etc. I could see nature as either a passive or active character in a story. Earth as a character that we abuse or love, which inspired the story “Eclipse Our Sins.”

Can you explain more what “Eclipse Our Sins” is doing and what motivated you to write it?

It was an amalgamation of many things: climate change, crimes, fear, pain. It came from a suffocating pressure-cooker moment of being inundated with scorching news reports of police shootings of Black men, gender-based violence, Black women being murdered horrendously, pollution, deforestation, toxic buildings we throw people into because of budget cuts, corruption, the raping of the environment, oil spills, racism, killings, xenophobia, endangered animals – it was all too much. I saw Mother Earth as a very wounded but angry soul, finally empowered to avenge her pain, which younger generations unfortunately have to bear. It was a deconstruction of how our current pleasures (peoples’ greed for wealth and power and materialism) sacrifice the future generation; the main character laments in one scene: 

Mmê Earth, You used to be so healthy for us . . . until we destroyed You. I understand now why You want to purge us from Your womb. But it is unfair. How come we are the ones to suffer for the before-generation’s desires that smoked our future? I hate them. I hate them all.

Much like in my short story “Murders Fell From Our Wombs,” which explored curses in a village setting as well as the stereotypical representation of women, the environment is an antagonist. In “Eclipse Our Sins,” the environment is also an antagonist and somewhat of a savior as it retaliates against the abuse it underwent. I wrote “Eclipse Our Sins” to explore how we abuse the Earth and people similarly. I’m quite a fan of true crime. It’s devastating to hear how people go missing or are murdered and found in horrid, random places. In addition, I am a Black woman – you can imagine the layers of abuse Black women go through. So I was fed up and this was my catharsis. In “Eclipse Our Sins,” at least you are safe from people’s evil acts because Mother Earth enacts punishment instantly and the question becomes: Is that to create a utopian world? But everyone’s definition of utopia is different. I also meditated on the fact that the ground, the trees, the air, the natural environment see everything about a crime. I wondered what would happen if the elements had the voice and power to stop something like that from happening. And if these elements have power, then there is power in illness. Depending on what you believe in, the root cause of a disease or illness may go beyond the physical symptoms – the mind is a very powerful organ. So in this story, characters’ sins manifest as illnesses in their bodies; what you do can destroy you.

I love how the story delves into climate change along with other pollutions. I love this line: â€œWarning! Pollutants rife in the air, in the city: carbon emission, racism, oil spills, sexism, deforestation, misogynism, xenophobia, murder…” How important is it for writers to recognize our natural world in terms of human experience, and how have you done this in other writing, such as “Eco-Humans?”

“Eco-Humans” is actually when I learned that you can design every detail of a building to respond to sustainability, weather, or the sun, whilst managing the costs to build and run it. So I wondered: What if humans were just like buildings? What if the environment became so toxic that every part of them had to be tempered in order to survive? What if all the elements that used to be free – air, sunlight – could no longer be easily absorbed into their bodies? Of course, you’d have companies trying to profit from this. How would poor communities survive? What if you could control how much air they could breathe? And what if it became too expensive to do that? If you manipulated them biologically as you did buildings, to be eco-friendly, what would that world be like?

I believe studying architecture has forced me to consider the natural environment because it influences our lives. It becomes saturated with culture, our actions, etc. Without it, we are nothing. The actions we impose on our environment are similar to the actions we impose on people, hence why there are parallels between pollution and say, racism. We abuse the Earth and now it’s retaliating the way people would. Writers are just like architects, designing and creating worlds. In class, we were taught to design buildings that responded to their environment and climate. That response could be conforming or opposing but we needed to have a valid reason for it. I see writers in the same way; they create and design written works, situated in different parts of the world, perhaps always responding to something.

You have a new novel out, The Silence of the Wilting Skin (Pink Narcissus Press, May 2020). The cover and title alone are intriguing. Can you describe this novel? I imagine that COVID-19 changed the way you were able to participate in readings and signings?

The Silence of the Wilting Skin is about a young woman trapped in an oppressive African city that’s erasing every part of people’s identity. The nameless young woman living in the wards slowly begins to lose her identity: her skin color peels off, people become invisible, and the city plans to destroy the train where they bury their dead. After the narrator is given a warning by her grandmother’s dreamskin, things begin to fall apart. Struggling to hold onto a fluctuating reality, she prescribes herself insomnia in a desperate attempt to save her family. It explores personal identity and the various ways we experience loss.

Here’s a beautiful summary from Publishers Weekly: “Through magnetic prose, dream logic, and lush imagery, Tsamaase delivers a fierce political message. Suffused with both love and righteous anger, this atmospheric anticolonialist battle cry is a tour de force.”

COVID-19 definitely changed things. Everything was done virtually and is still being done virtually so, really, bless the internet!

Does this story happen in a specific place?

The story doesn’t take place in a specific place, but it does take place in Africa. Parts of the setting are based on our city’s urban planning issue. For example, the train tracks that divide the two cities in the novella are based on the train tracks that, in a way, divide our city. This has led to traffic congestion and a lack of ease of movement on both sides for pedestrians and vehicles. Of course people can move in and out of these sites; it’s just that certain things could be accommodated to make it easier for both parties. That’s the train you see on the cover. Secondly, some beliefs in the story are based on myths we heard as kids. For instance, we were told that when we dream and see someone dead in a train calling us, we shouldn’t get on otherwise, we will never wake up. Hence the dreamskin people and the dead people on the train, and the ancestral realm that speaks to the spirituality and beliefs of some African cultures. Thirdly, some of the structures that are described come from traditional African architecture or Western architecture; hence why you see two cities on either side of the train.

Anything else you would like to add?

Thank you for this lovely interview!

I have a couple of forthcoming projects. The only way to find out is to head over to my website and subscribe to my newsletter or join my Patreon, which is where I provide sneak peeks of upcoming works, releases, and where I post details of my work and process. Either way, you can contact me to say hello, tell me how your day has been, or send in questions.

Thanks to you too! I enjoyed getting to know your writing and you a little better.

This article is part of our Wild Authors series. It was originally published on Dragonfly.eco.

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Mary Woodbury, a graduate of Purdue University, runs Dragonfly.eco, a site that explores ecology in literature, including works about climate change. She writes fiction under pen name Clara Hume. Her novel Back to the Garden has been discussed in Dissent Magazine, Ethnobiology for the Future: Linking Cultural and Ecological Diversity (University of Arizona Press), and Uncertainty and the Philosophy of Climate Change (Routledge). Mary lives in Nova Scotia and enjoys hiking, writing, and reading.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

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By Quentin D. Young

For many years now, I’ve mulled over the question of how to write a fictional narrative about the climate crisis in order to successfully reach people’s hearts and minds, and inspire real action. On the one hand, the current state of the Earth demands urgent action from us, which means that the climate stories we tell need to help audiences consciously draw the links and join the dots. In my opinion, being subtle about climate change and featuring it merely as a background element or a subliminal theme is a luxury we don’t have anymore. On the other hand, being didactic and preachy is usually a huge turn-off. Striking the right balance is something of a puzzle – one that I find I must solve anew with each and every climate storytelling project I begin.

MEET THE AUDIENCE HALFWAY

Coming from a screenwriting background, I typically see my stories as visual narratives for the screen. Some years ago, I began work on a climate story in the form of a short film script. Instead of a live-action film though, I envisioned a charming animation with cute and colorful artwork worthy of a Pixar movie. If we’re going to challenge audiences and get them thinking about something as depressing and anxiety-inducing as global warming, we have to meet them halfway and make it easy for them to engage with the material. We need to make our stories entertaining and, yes, “fun.” In my view, this is where there remains plenty of space for storytelling innovation.

A second way I decided to meet the audience halfway was in loosely basing my story on L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. My Oz re-imagining would be an affectionate parody of Baum’s work, and my climate story would function by, first and foremost, engaging audiences through the much-loved source material. But on discovering the prohibitive cost of making an animated short and the scarcity of producers willing to back such a project, I opted to adapt my story into a comic book. A comic book was something I could manage myself while remaining in the pop culture category, which includes popular mediums such as television shows and video games. This was a parameter I had set for the project because, given the scale of the climate problem, I wanted the story to have as much reach as possible. Below is the cover artwork that artist Jean Lins and I eventually created for our charming Oz-meets-climate comic.

Of course, not every climate story needs to riff off a pre-existing work. The draw of the familiar can be achieved in genre terms alone, which could result in some unexpected and fascinating mash-ups. Zombies and climate change? I haven’t tried it myself, but it already sounds interesting to me. In the case of our project, I found that the original Ozmaterial lent itself so well to an environmentalist’s reinterpretation that the satirical opportunities were too delightful to resist. For example, in our story Emerald City has been renamed “Green City.” Having adopted the optimistic philosophy and aesthetics of solarpunk, the Wizard’s society now runs on clean energy and coexists with abundant plant life, as shown in the splash page below.

FIND A NEW ANGLE

As many others have said, not all climate stories need to be apocalyptic dystopias filled with doom and gloom. There’s a place for such a perspective, but there’s also a place for whimsy, humor, and hope, even in the face of climate catastrophe. Taking the lighter approach can indeed help audiences engage with an otherwise dark and depressing subject. This is what we wanted to achieve with our comic, so we embraced comedy and eccentricity. As shown in the panel below, climate deniers are depicted as fat Munchkins in carbon(ara)-excreting robotic suits, which help them move around faster. Crucially, instead of being demonized, these beings are shown to be capable of redemption by the end of the story.

Despite our general aversion to doom and gloom, however, extreme weather does make an appearance, not only as a symbol of climate change but as the main antagonist in the story, shown anthropomorphized in the splash page below. But with a moniker like the “Wicked Weather of the West” and as an echo of Dorothy’s tornado from the original Oztale, climate change is reframed in a meta-fictional light and with enough self-referential humor that, hopefully, audiences won’t recoil from didacticism and, instead, will be more deeply engaged with the story’s satirical point-of-view.

MAKE IT PERSONAL

Hundreds of people perishing in a natural disaster is a statistic, but the needless suffering of one person is a tragedy. As individuals, we are hardwired to relate and empathize with other individuals. Because of this, a huge phenomenon like global warming tends to be hard to depict and grasp in a story. To engage our audiences, we need to bring everything back to the realm of personal human experiences and life lessons. In the case of our comic, the heart of the story isn’t climate change primarily, but the emotional journey of a girl named Dolores. Through her encounters with the fat Munchkins, the Wicked Weather of the West, and the Wizard of Green City, she eventually finds the courage to tell the truth and to apologize for her fibs. In our post-truth times, where the climate issue is itself obfuscated by lies and unscientific misinformation, the story of Dolores as an individual can speak to the larger cause.

THE FINISHED BOOK

It’s been a long journey from my short film script to the comic adaptation, but The Wizard of O₂ is finally a finished book. I must thank the many readers who read my drafts and provided feedback along the way, including the climate storytelling team behind the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) Rewrite the Future initiative. They helped with script development early on, when the project only existed as a film script.

As a comic book, The Wizard of O₂ is now published under my imprint, Truth/Dare Media. We’re a publishing startup that focuses on telling important stories through pop culture mediums like comics and audiobooks. The Wizard of O₂ is our debut comic, and it’s currently available digitally through major online bookstores including Amazon, Apple Books, Kobo, and Google Play. It’s also been released on Comixology, an Amazon platform dedicated to digital comics, and the world’s largest comic readership. We’ll be donating a portion of the profits to Fridays For Future, the global youth movement begun by Greta Thunberg. Some of the kids involved with the movement have now read the book, and their feedback has been great!

As a climate storyteller, my mission is to share the story of the climate crisis with new audiences through the wide reach of popular entertainment because, yes, I believe that pop culture can help us save the world. So if you enjoy The Wizard of O₂ and agree that it contributes toward this cause, please help us spread the word!

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Quentin D. Young is an emerging comic creator and a represented script writer whose screenplays have been accepted for submission by leading Hollywood companies including Walt Disney Studios, 20th Century Studios (formerly Fox), and Participant Media. The Wizard of O₂ is his debut comic, and he is currently working on a graphic novel titled Dreamstormer. Formerly an environmental engineer, Quentin writes stories with the aim of entertaining mainstream audiences while also raising awareness and understanding of the unfolding climate crisis.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

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By DM (Deanna) Witman

The world is experiencing a time of extraordinary loss: of species, habitat, ecological connectivity, and personal connection to the natural world. An increasing number of individuals and communities are struggling with grief and other health effects surrounding these losses.

As environmental degradation accelerates across the globe, so too do the emotional impacts on people, causing anxiety, stress, depression, as well as manifestations of violence and aggression. Environmental grief can be triggered by the loss of a favorite childhood swimming beach due to erosion, or an entire island community from rising waters. These losses may, in turn, result in a loss of identity, perhaps associated with declining income from an occupation, or the disappearance of that occupation altogether. What will a lobsterman call himself when there are no more lobsters to be trapped in the waters off the coast of Maine? Cultural distress results from a loss of place value or community identity.

With my Index series, I draw upon my past experiences as a field biologist to process grieving around the losses we are facing as the result of climate change. These photograms serve as a record for what once was: the flora in a small patch of intertidal marsh of the St. George River, where I live and work. Reminiscent of herbarium records, the flora are memorialized and serve as a baseline against the impending change caused by increasing temperatures and rising waters. My small area of intertidal marsh will not be spared; it will bear the impact of these changes.

Each piece is unique, printed on fine printmaking paper, with the trace of each individual plant fixed in perpetuity. These images are produced through gum bichromate, a photographic process dating to the mid-late 1800s, which uses gum arabic, watercolor pigment, and a sensitizer.

Memento mori is an artistic or symbolic reminder of death’s inevitability and the fragility of human life. Authors, artists, and philosophers have worked with it since the days of Plato. With Index, the reminder of life’s fragility and the idea that all life ends at some point is visible in the plant’s memorialized state as a photographic trace on the paper.

In an interview in Cabinet regarding memento mori, photo historian, curator, author, and teacher Geoffrey Batchen noted, “…Such objects seek to remember a loved one, not as someone now dead, but as someone who was once alive, young and vital, with a future before them. In this kind of object, they will always have that future, a comforting thought, perhaps, for those who have been left behind.” The plants that I collected were alive at the time I collected them, and were still alive as they became imprints on paper – an index of these beautiful lives. And while the photograph-objects remind me of their life and perhaps their future demise, I am comforted by their existence in this moment and even in the fact that they existed at all.

After completing Index, Dr. William Hafford, a then colleague of mine, and I began a series of conversations about our shared experience of loss and grief. We suspected that we were not the only people living with this experience. Surely others felt something similar – the loss, the sadness. Could we join forces to work with our communities in Maine?

Our conversations led to a few working sessions and to the idea of creating a resource for our Maine communities, which took the form of a zine titled A Guide to Loss & Grieving in the Anthropocene: a low-budget booklet, which could be mass-produced and shared widely. We received several grants for the project that we used for printing. The zine contains several psychological models of grief paired with images from Index, along with further resources for individuals who may want more information or need assistance.

In addition to the zine, we were curious to learn if others in our communities would be interested in talking about their own experiences surrounding climate change and related loss. We scheduled a number of events in public spaces, such as libraries, across the state. We had no idea if anyone would show up. And what we found was that people did want to talk about this. There is a common feeling, a common experience of mourning, guilt, helplessness, defeat, but also of hope and resiliency. Our aim was to reduce isolation, to bring people together in community so that they might continue to support each other, even after we left.

In 2020, it could not have been clearer that the world was grappling with loss related to climate disruption and its associated impacts from (un)natural disasters, pandemics, migration, and food insecurity. As the year unfolded and losses were felt so deeply on so many fronts, I started work on a video/performance piece to continue my exploration of the phenomena of grief. This two-channel piece is titled The Haircut… or Learning to Let Go. In my research about mourning and grief, I found a number of references to the cutting of hair; in many cultures, cutting one’s hair is an expression of grief. I had envisioned this piece prior to the pandemic, but as the early days of the pandemic wore on, it seemed an even more necessary act – cutting my hair as an expression, as a physical response to my psychological state and concerns regarding everything that was being lost, and that we continue to lose.

At some point, I hope to turn my attention to resiliency and hope. I continue to ask myself big questions such as: “How do we carry forth in our daily lives and stay hopeful?” “What can I do to help others connect more deeply to their surroundings?” Perhaps there aren’t any straightforward answers and what I am looking for in resiliency is more of a process than a desired outcome. I look forward to continuing my investigation and explorations to see where it all leads me.

(Top image: (left) Pontederia cordata, 2018, unique, 25.75 x 19.75 in.; (right) Sium suave, 2018, unique, 25.75 x 19.75 in.)

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DM Witman is a trandisciplinary artist working at the intersection of environmental disruption and the human relationship to place in the Age of the Anthropocene. Her creative practice is deeply rooted within the realm of the effects of humans on this world using photographic materials, video, and installation. DM is affiliated with Klompching Gallery, New York and Cove Street Arts, Portland. Recent interviews and publications include The Guardian, BBC Culture, WIRED, Boston Globe, and Art New England. She actively exhibits her work and has been recognized with grants from the Maine Arts Commission, The Kindling Fund, and the Puffin Foundation.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

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By Bill Russell

When I witnessed massive forest and home fires rampaging through my Northern California community and saw the devastation they wrought, I woke up to the reality of global warming. I wanted to respond in my own creative way. We are living through the Anthropocene, this era of geologic history in which humans are the primary environmental force. As a painter and a visual journalist, I feel an urgency to share these dire messages through my art.

In my new painting, The Deluge (detail above), I tackle the subject of sea level rise, which not only affects coastal cities but also presents an existential threat to our culture. Unlike with the California fires, I have no direct experience of rising seas, but I am no less moved to make art about this phenomenon.

The Deluge is an apocalyptic vision that builds upon my interest in human-influenced ecology, which is bringing discord to our planet. I show the white, hot sun bearing down through a depleted atmosphere and icebergs set adrift from our melting polar ice caps. While these ancient icebergs don’t cause sea levels to rise, they do provide an invaluable record of our planet’s climate history through the study of their ice cores. Iconic artifacts of our culture have come unmoored, like beach balls and sea mines, U-boats and polar bears. We see a freighter run aground, a sinking Titanic, and a half-submerged Chrysler Building. Container ships toss their containers. Plastic bottles float in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Kraken, a mythic peril of the sea, devours ships. Noah’s Ark offers a possible means of survival.

Two particular historic paintings inspired me during my work on The Deluge: Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise and Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa. 

Impression, Sunrise, painted in the spring of 1873, depicts the urban-industrial landscape at the port of Le Havre, France, with small rowboats in the foreground, smokestacks and steamships in the middle ground, and a red sun in the far distance. Monet found beauty in the picturesque atmospheric effects in the commingling of mist, steam, fog, and smoke. I wanted to make a similarly sublime observation on the effects of the pollution that Monet saw.

Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa shows desperate yet romanticized figures adrift on turbulent seas. It was infamous for its brutal depiction of an actual event. It was also scandalous, given the political implications and ambiguity of whether the men on the raft were to be rescued or not. These sailors are unable to see their survival on the horizon. We are also confronted with an unknowable beyond. Can we be rescued from climate change? Will we take the actions necessary to change our own foreboding future?

While The Deluge is my latest reflection on human-induced climate change, back in 2015, my artwork reflected the sadness I felt seeing the Valley Fire destroy homes and displace members of the Lake County, California community. I drew on location among the detritus and made paintings of the devastation. It motivated me to produce art that captured that feeling. I wanted to understand how it happened. As it’s understood now, the origin of that fire was a human error, but fires have and will intensify – the result of warmer, drier conditions. These are, in large part, the product of global warming.

A warming planet means a warming ocean. Rising water temperatures can trigger coral reefs to expel the colorful algae living in their tissue, which turns them sickly white. In Coral Bleaching Diptych, I wanted to show the before-and-after views of this effect and to draw focus to this mostly unseen ruination.

Global climate change has become a substantive subject matter in my paintings. It brings a depth of meaning to my work. I educate myself in the research. Through my creative practice, I become more aware and engaged. But more importantly, these stories need to be told. Our planet faces serious, pressing challenges that are only getting worse. Look to the artists and their work to illuminate, educate, and activate.

(Top image: Bill Russell, The Deluge (detail), 36” x 36”, acrylic on canvas, 2020)

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Bill Russell is a painter, illustrator and designer based in Marin County, California. He earned his degree from Parsons School of Design in New York and was an Adjunct Professor of Illustration at the California School of the Arts in San Francisco, as well as a staff artist at the San Francisco Chronicle. He has completed artist residencies at Recology and the Kala Art Institute. You can see more of his paintings at Bill Russell Fine Art and see his reportage at Russell Reportage.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

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By Amy Brady

This month I have for you an interview with Tory Stephens, the New England Network Weaver for Grist’s solutions lab, Fix, and the Director of Imagine 2200, Fix’s exciting new writing contest that’s currently seeking submissions. 

The contest seek stories inspired by Afrofuturism, solarpunk, and futuristic writing styles that embrace Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, disabled, feminist, and queer identities and communities. Judges are looking for stories that center climate solutions and the experiences of communities impacted first and hardest by climate change, with the aim of imagining a more just and sustainable future. 

The winning writer will be awarded $3,000, with the second and third-place writers receiving $2,000 and $1,000, respectively. Imagine 2200’s judge line-up is super impressive: Adrienne Maree Brown, Morgan Jerkins, and Kiese Laymon will be choosing the winning stories. 

I spoke with Tory about why Grist launched this contest, the kinds of writers he hopes will submit work, and the role that climate storytelling plays in the wider discourse on climate change. 

Tell us about Grist’s solutions lab, Fix. What are its goals? What’s your role there?

Fix is a relatively new program at Grist. It grew in part out of the Grist 50, our annual list of “Fixers” – up-and-coming changemakers working toward a better world for all. A few years into producing the Grist 50 list, the team (led largely by Grist’s founder, Chip Giller) started convening each new cohort of Fixers, and making more of an effort to seed connections and stay in touch with the folks who had been featured. That gave rise to a new program called Fix, which combines solutions-focused storytelling with community building and events. Our goal is to accelerate equitable climate solutions, and lead the conversation on what’s possible in addressing the climate crisis. 

My job at Fix is a fun one – I’m the network weaver for New England, where Fix is piloting a regional approach to community building. And now I’m acting as the creative director for Imagine 2200, which was actually born in New England. 

Imagine 2200 is Fix’s new climate-fiction contest. What inspired this contest, and what do you hope it will motivate readers to do or think?

The first idea for a work of fiction set in the year 2200, modeling a just and sustainable future, came out of an event Fix hosted in the summer of 2019. That was just before I joined the team – I was actually at the event as a participant. But we were all really excited about the idea, and it seemed like something that wasn’t yet in Grist’s or Fix’s wheelhouse, but could be. In the spring of 2020, I helped plan and produce a second community event in New England (or rather, on Zoom) that centered around a visioning exercise to workshop the idea of 2200 – what would define a “clean, green, and just future” in a time that feels so far away, and how we might get there. The ideas generated by the folks from that event laid the foundation for Imagine 2200: Climate fiction for future ancestors. 

The year 2200 is so far away that it almost feels like a blank slate. (Note: Stories don’t have to be set in 2200 for our contest – they can be anywhere between now and then. But part of the idea is to remove the confines of our current predicament and let folks create a world they’d want their grandkids, or their great-great-great-grandkids to live in.) We’re hoping Imagine 2200 will inspire visions of the future that haven’t even been dreamt up yet – but that could inspire real action in the present day. And our goal with the final collection of stories is to show readers different views of the world we could have if we take decisive action against the climate crisis, again in a variety of ways. That’s part of our mission at Grist and especially at Fix: to make the story of a better world so irresistible, you want it right now. 

How do you see genres like Afrofuturism and Solarpunk relating to climate fiction? What do you hope that the submissions draw from these genres?

Afrofuturism (as well as Indigenous, Latinx, disabled, feminist, and queer futures, and others) speaks to the kind of hopeful, equitable fiction we’re going for. These genres – or really, these movements – depict a future where the world isn’t set up to oppress and exclude folks from marginalized communities, but instead places them at the center, as the heroes, the creators, the leaders. The technologically advanced and ecologically sustainable society of Wakanda is a famous example. 

We know that climate change doesn’t impact all people equally. The fossil fuel industry that we know today would not exist if it weren’t for society’s willingness to make some communities sacrifice zones. It’s widely accepted now that we can’t divorce the climate crisis from systemic racism – and so any serious, comprehensive solutions to climate change have to put equity at the center, and have to be informed and led by communities on the frontlines. With Imagine 2200, our goal is to show that in action, to show what happens when we value lived experience and put people first. And we’re adding a dash of hopepunk – compassion and perseverance, even in the face of what may seem like insurmountable challenges.

What role do you believe climate fiction in general, whether as part of this contest or elsewhere, can play in either the wider discourse on climate change or among “solutions” to the crisis? In other words, what power do you see as inherent in climate fiction?

I think art can be incredibly motivating. It’s society’s mirror. In some cases, that mirror is unflattering – think, like, a Black Mirror episode. Or an investigative journalism piece by Grist. That kind of work can push society or specific institutions to self-correct, or at least to question the direction we’re headed. And then in some cases, the mirror is aspirational, or creatively distorted. It inspires and changes our view of what the world could be. With climate change, there are so many variables and so much uncertainty about the future we’re going to have, and the world we’re going to leave our children’s children. That’s why I think it’s an especially rich area for fiction – both the scary kind and the hopeful kind. At Fix, obviously, we’re focusing on the latter. And the hope is that it leads to real behavior change in the present, real conversations about the way out of this crisis and the way to build a world that works for everyone. 

Whose voices, either in climate fiction or the climate movement more generally, are still underrepresented? Who would you like to hear more from?

We want stories that are by and for the communities we come from, are adjacent to, and care about. Representation matters, but surface representation ain’t it. Me, my friends, family, and my community have richly layered identities, and in many instances, it’s our social and political experiences that are the drivers of our story and actions. We want climate fiction that builds deeply intersectional systems, worlds and solutions, because what’s happening right now is erasure. This is why we’re asking folk to disrupt the genre. And this is why we’re creating a platform for all the voices. We’re loudly saying that we are the authors of our own future. And we will not be erased. We need and want everyone to see themselves in this hopeful vision so we can co-create the abundance we deserve, and so we and our home can heal from the violence and extraction. That’s what it means to be a future ancestor.

What’s next for you and Fix? 

Honest answer: everything! We’re a fast-growing team with a lot of big ideas. When the pandemic is fully behind us, we’re looking forward to resuming our in-person gatherings and continuously finding new ways to engage our community, and the public. We’re always experimenting on the storytelling side as well, and aiming to expand our content offerings with multimedia, interactives, fiction, and beyond. There are a million things we haven’t done – but just you wait!

(Top image by Carolina Rodríguez Fuenmayor)

This article is part of the Climate Art Interviews series. It was originally published in Amy Brady’s “Burning Worlds” newsletter. Subscribe to get Amy’s newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.

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Amy Brady is the Deputy Publisher of Guernica magazine and Senior Editor of the Chicago Review of Books. Her writing about art, culture, and climate has appeared in the Village Voice, the Los Angeles Times, Pacific Standard, the New Republic, and other places. She is also the editor of the monthly newsletter “Burning Worlds,” which explores how artists and writers are thinking about climate change. She holds a PHD in English and is the recipient of a CLIR/Mellon Library of Congress Fellowship. Read more of her work at AmyBradyWrites.com at and follow her on Twitter at @ingredient_x.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

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By Peterson Toscano

Marissa Slaven talks about her novel, Code Blue, an eco-mystery. Drawing on her love of the coast in New England and even her background as a palliative care physician, Marissa has created a near future world that is stressed by climate change in a society that has chosen to respond creatively to it. About the book, Marissa writes:

In my novel Code Blue, I imagine the future where climate change is worse than it is now, but people are at least trying. And no one is trying harder than the main characters, Tic, Phish, and Lee, a group of teens at a science academy who are trying to unravel mysteries both global and intensely personal.

She expertly weaves in various mysteries her main character, a high school student, must solve. These mysteries are both personal and scientific. Her book is one you cannot easily put down once you start reading it. My talk with her is followed by Marissa reading from the book.

And coming out later this year, look for Code Red, a sequel.

Follow Marissa Slaven on Twitter: @MarissaSlaven

Next month: Jennie Carlisle, curator and director of the Smith Gallery at Appalachian State University, and Laura England, a senior lecturer. They are two of three co-facilitators of ASU’s Climate Stories Collaborative. They consider the questions: How does an artist stay in a creative space? When producing climate art, what is more important – the process or the product? 

If you like what you hear, you can listen to full episodes of Citizens’ Climate Radio on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, SoundCloud, Podbean, Northern Spirit Radio, Google Play, PlayerFM, and TuneIn Radio. Also, feel free to connect with other listeners, suggest program ideas, and respond to programs in the Citizens’ Climate Radio Facebook group or on Twitter at @CitizensCRadio.

This article is part of The Art House series.

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As host of Citizens’ Climate Radio, Peterson Toscano regularly features artists who address climate change in their work. The Art House section of his program includes singer/songwriters, visual artists, comics, creative writers, and playwrights. Through a collaboration with Artists and Climate Change and Citizens’ Climate Education, each month Peterson reissues The Art House for this blog. If you have an idea for The Art House, contact Peterson: radio @ citizensclimatelobby.org

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

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By Joan Sullivan

Human culture is and has always been inexorably connected to the ultimate source of light and warmth, the sun.

Maria Popova, 2016

Following up on my first post of 2021 – about an epic hand-embroidered tapestry that illustrates humanity’s 5,000-year relationship with fossil fuels – I want to broaden the focus of this ongoing Renewable Energy series (four years already!) by including occasional musings on the larger context in which we currently find ourselves: an energy transition.

There have been at least 12 energy transitions since the beginning of human civilization. To state the obvious: humanity has managed to survive and prosper through each of the previous energy transitions, and we will undoubtedly do so again as our energy mix shifts inexorably from fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) to renewable sources of energy (wind, water, solar, geothermal).

We are fortunate to be living witnesses to, and participants in, this historic shift to a post-carbon future. If history has taught us anything, it is this: what was once considered a dominant and irreplaceable energy source can suddenly find itself playing second fiddle to a disruptive new energy source or technology. 

A common feature of energy transitions throughout history, including the current one, is that multiple energy sources can and do co-exist for decades, sometimes even centuries – e.g., wood is still burned in all corners of the world for cooking and heating. But eventually, the disruptive energy source becomes mainstream and dominates all aspects of our lives and economies, ushering in a new era of cultural values and meanings uniquely associated with that energy source.

“New energy sources are very much like new art,” wrote Barry Lord in his extraordinary 2016 book, Art & Energy: How Culture Changes. Like avant-garde art, cutting-edge energy “introduces new values yet never invalidates the masterworks of the past.” He explains:

Because our sources of surplus energy are so basic to everything we are and do, the values and meanings associated with those that have been with us for a long time seem to be fundamental – the sense of collective identity or the values of domesticity and urbanism, for instance. Almost all of these old values stay with us, continuing to inspire and sustain meaningful works of art. But the new values and meanings that come with each energy transition in turn form a cutting edge, changing our perception of ourselves, of others and of what matters most in the world around us at that time.

When the energy source is new, cutting-edge artists work with a (mostly unuttered) awareness of it. As the source of energy becomes more dominant, all the rest of us come to share that awareness, whether we express it or not. It is the artists who help us see it (emphasis added).

Throughout 2021, I will return frequently to Lord’s book to muse about this reciprocal relationship between energy transitions and art. Let’s start by looking at a 19^th century British artist whose avant-garde, pre-impressionist landscapes captured the global transition from wind (for tall sailing ships) to coal (for steam-powered ships and trains) at the height of the industrial revolution. 

James Mallord William Turner, also known as JMW Turner, was practically alone among his Romantic contemporaries to treat industrial technology (including the energy transition) as a subject worthy of artistic consideration. According to the TATE Britain, Turner “lived and worked at the peak of the industrial revolution. Steam replaced sail; machine-power replaced manpower; political and social reforms transformed society. Many artists ignored these changes but Turner faced up to these.”

Accepted into the Royal Academy of Art at age 15, Turner had a long and prolific artistic career that lasted more than 60 years. In the last two decades of his life – which overlapped with many profound technological, social and political changes – Turner’s work became increasingly abstract. (As an aside, I find it interesting to note that half a century later, in the context of the disastrous first word war, the Russian abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky was quoted as saying : “The more frightening the world becomes, the more art becomes abstract.” The same would be true today…)

Two of Turner’s most famous paintings were created in the context of this rapidly changing world in the middle of the 19th century. Both of these paintings explore Turner’s fascination with technology, notably the transition from wind to coal-powered steam for “modern” transport.

The Fighting Temeraire (above), completed in 1839, is one of Turner’s most famous paintings. At first glance, we imagine a calm marine landscape on the river Thames in London. But the genius of Turner is that behind this placid scene, a dramatic historical event is unfolding as a metaphor of the global shift from wind to coal, an energy transition that ultimately would transform the world. Here, the aging hulk of the once mighty Temeraire, a veteran 98-gun warship (pale, ghostly, weak: stripped of its sails) is being pulled by a small steam-powered tugboat (modern, strong, polluting) on her last voyage – at sunset no less – as the age of sail gives way to the age of steam.

Turner’s retelling of the historic Temeraire being tugged to its last berth to be broken up for scrap is absolutely magnificent in its subtlety. And yet, art historians to this day are still debating whether Turner embraced the industrial revolution as a progressive path towards a new world, or whether he was expressing melancholy for the inevitable loss of a perceived golden age. Or perhaps both.

Five years after the Temeraire, Turner produced his masterpiece Rain, Steam and Speed(1844). While both paintings explore the tension between the pre-industrial and the modern, Rain, Steam and Speed vibrates with energy and excitement compared to the more placid Temeraire. Seven years before his death, Turner created the impression of dazzling speed as a modern coal-powered steam train hurtles towards the viewer diagonally across a rainy landscape.

Rain, Steam and Speed is considered an allegory of man against nature: it is impossible to distinguish which steam is produced by the train (man) and which is produced by the rain (nature). Turner is purposely ambiguous; he never divulges his opinion about the breathtaking speed, noise and pollution of coal-powered steam trains. He leaves that up to the viewer. But his metaphoric treatment of the energy transition, subsumed by light and color, suggests that Turner, in his last two decades, must have seen the writing on the wall and embraced the implacable march towards a coal-powered future. This was prescient: nearly 200 years later, coal may no longer be “king” but it still generates almost 40% of the world’s electricity.

Mapped: The world’s coal power plants

Barry Lord reminds us in Art & Energy: How Culture Changes that energy transitions are also engines of cultural change. For example, he explains how the age of coal created a culture of production; how the age of oil and gas created a culture of consumption; and how the age of renewables is presently creating a culture of stewardship. According to Lord, it is artists who help us “to see” and make sense of these overlapping and constantly evolving transitions, even though the historical pace of past energy transitions has been longer than the lives of the artists living through them.

So while Turner’s avant-garde abstract landscapes “were mockingly dismissed by his critics as ‘the fruits of a diseased eye and a reckless hand’” – and then later acclaimed to be masterpieces – the same volte-face awaits the frequently maligned renewable energy industry so despised by climate deniers. But history is on our side. Lord explains:

When an energy source is incipient, the cultural values that it engenders are seen as innovative and open to dispute, just like cutting-edge art. Once the new energy source becomes dominant, the values that it brought with it become mainstream. With the renewable energy culture of stewardship, that process is happening in our own time. This movement from marginal to mainstream is directly duplicated in the arts. Performance art, for example, based on stewardship of the body, has moved from a marginal activity to a mainstream art form.

Artists and creatives of all stripes and colors, it’s time to choose your creative weapon! Over the next nine years, I challenge us all to stay razor focused on this beautiful concept of the age of stewardship – to will it into existence! No more fire-and-brimstone. Our goal, at the end of the second decade of the third millennium, is to look back and “see” how we have changed history by relentlessly drawing attention to the many positive, regenerative, and socially just cultural values associated with the current energy transition. Like JMW Turner.

ADDENDUM

Two major Turner gallery exhibitions planned for 2020 were postponed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the Tate Britain, Turner’s Modern World is on exhibition until March 7, 2021. On the other side of the big pond, Turner and the Sublime is on exhibition at the Musée national des beaux arts au Québec (MNBAQ) in Quebec City, Canada until May 2, 2021. Tickets are required for both exhibitions. Ã€ qui la chance!

For a fascinating gallery talk about Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire, check out the UK’s National Gallery video. 

For a preview to Mike Leigh’s award-winning 2014 biographical drama based on the last 25 years of JMW Turner’s life, see this link.

(Top image: Close-up of JMW Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire, downloaded from the National Gallery, licensed for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons agreement.)

This article is part of the Renewable Energy series.

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Joan Sullivan is a Canadian photographer focused on the energy transition. In her monthly column for Artists and Climate Change, Joan explores the intersection of art and the energy transition. She is currently experimenting with abstract photography as a new language to express her grief about climate breakdown. You can find Joan on Twitter and Visura.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

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By Susan Hoffman Fishman

Since the 4^th century BC, explorers, geographers, archaeologists, cartographers, navigators, sealers, whalers, miners, scientists, artists, writers, and others have traveled to the Arctic to observe, document, research, explore, and exploit its beauty, its ecosystems, and its natural resources. They have described being awed by its grandeur, diminished by its scale, mesmerized by its stillness, and scared by its awesome power. Many have reported being changed in fundamental ways by the experience. 

In 2010, when British poet, screenwriter, and librettist Nick Drake was invited to join a three-week trip to the Norwegian Arctic by the international climate/arts nonprofit Cape Farewell in order to investigate the changes brought about by the climate crisis, his personal journey of exploration was added to the long list of others that had come before him.

Cape Farewell’s 2010 Art and Science expedition sailed around Svalbard, an archipelago 550 miles north of Norway, on the two-mast vessel Noorderlicht with five marine scientists and ten artists from around the world. Prior to embarking on the voyage, Drake had never thought deeply about the climate crisis nor addressed it in his work. When he first accepted the invitation from Cape Farewell, he thought he would be encountering a wild, pristine land that had not been spoiled by human intervention. With the help of the expedition’s scientists, he soon learned about the devastating acceleration of glacier melt, pollution, and human exploitation. In his first written piece documenting his impressions, Drake describes in poetic language the millennia-old memories embedded in the ice as well as the vestiges of industrial activity that were melting the glacier in front of his eyes: 

It’s good to know this vast frozen beast, born of the last Ice Age, is still here; suddenly it’s strangely comforting to think of it as a world library of snow – for it’s true if fanciful that the snow of the winters of all our lives is somewhere in here, crushed down to ice; so is that which fell during Shakespeare’s winter’s tale, on the ice-fairs on the Thames; and the snow that fell when Breughel’s hunters were returning home; and the snow that fell long before anything human was really here. And now, the warm breath of billions of lives, and the CO2 from the stacks of foundries and factories, and worldwide traffic jams, and the collected vapour trails of all the flights that have ever flown, is melting away the monster, little by little.

Drake also recorded himself reading a poem based on the blog entry above while he was still onboard the Noorderlicht.

Two particular incidents that occurred during the 2010 expedition impacted Drake in a visceral way and informed the content and format of The Farewell Glacier (2012), his book-length poem, which he wrote when he returned to the UK. The first event happened as the Noorderlicht was traveling down a passageway through pack ice in the northern part of the archipelago. Suddenly the ice closed around the ship, which became instantly trapped. After many tries by the ship’s pilot to disengage from the ice, the passengers were instructed to prepare for an evacuation by helicopter. Ultimately, the pilot was able to extract the ship without the need for a sea rescue. 

The dramatic experience left Drake with a very real understanding of how, within a split second, one’s life can become endangered in this harsh environment. He also developed a strong sense of connection to the young men who had come to the Arctic in previous centuries aboard whaling ships and on other expeditions without the advanced technology that provided the crew and passengers of the Noorderlicht with an immediate lifeline. Drake later incorporated the voices of these untrained and vulnerable young men in The Farewell Glacier. Over the following year, he used other human and non-human voices to tell the Western, and especially European, story of the Arctic. 

The second experience that impacted Drake was a real-time visual example of the climate crisis in action. Sailing towards a large glacier, the expedition scientists indicated the area in the water where the glacier had once been. It was a full 40 minutes before the ship reached the edge of where the glacier was currently located. From this and other “aha” moments, Drake felt an immense responsibility to write something about the extreme acceleration of climate change that would appeal to the hearts and minds of the general public. 

The Farewell Glacier is a chronological account of the Western, and especially European, experience in the Arctic told through the voices of the humans who encountered it, the chemical elements that have polluted it, (including methane, PCB, POP and DDT, etc.) and other non-human actors, such as a sea-shanty, the sun, pteropods, and an ice-core sample. He calls it “a story about wonder and consumption,” of “exploration and exploitation.” 

Drake wrote The Farewell Glacier in stages. The first section of the poem that he composed after he returned from the Arctic was the voice of “The Future,” which is both a tale of warning and a call to action. In 2019, Fleabag star, Andrew Scott, and his sister Hannah recorded “The Future,” which was then posted on the twitter page Culture Declares Emergency and can be found on Drake’s website. 

In 2012, the National Maritime Museum in London commissioned Drake to write a poem that would tell the story of the Western experience in the Arctic as part of a major installation developed by United Visual Artists, in collaboration with Cape Farewell. The result was the full text of The Farewell Glacier.

Drake describes the book as a “collection of monologues or arias” from “the deep past, and into the near future because as Inuit say,‘we are the people who have changed nature.’” The excerpts below are just two of the voices in The Farewell Glacier that are part of this powerful Arctic story. 

When I was twelve
To win a bet
I walked across the thin ice of the frozen Severn
And never looked back.
Later, I resolved to walk
From Alaska to Svalbard
Across the thin ice
Via the Pole of Inaccessibility
And the North Pole.
My Inuit friends left a map
Pinned to the hut door
Marked with the places they thought I would die.
It was 3,800 miles;
We left in February,
Four men and forty dogs. 
And in July we made camp
Because the ice was not drifting 
In our favour.

When the sun returned
We continued through the next summer
To reach 90 degrees North.
I telegraphed the Queen.
Trying to stand on the pole 
Was like trying to step
On the shadow of a bird
Circling overhead.
Two weeks later
A man took the first step on the Moon
And by the time we got home
We were forgotten.
You couldn’t walk it now,
Even if you wanted to –
Why not?
Because the sea is melting,
And no one can walk on water.

— Wally Hebert (1934 – 2007), British polar explorer, writer and artist

We were born in your dream of the future – 
Released by fire
We ascended the winding stairs of the smoke stacks
Until we reached the orange sunrise
And the blue sky.
No one waved goodbye.
No one saw us go;
We were uncountable
And invisible.
One way or another 
We were carried north
In the hands of the winds,
Through the stories of the rivers,
By the generosity of the oceans;
And when we arrived at the cold
Top of the world
It felt like home, sweet home;
And we waited in the long darkness
Until at last
The first light of the year transmuted us
Out of thin air and we came to rest
In ice and snow and black water.
Now we accumulate
And magnify
In the cells of fish, in the eggs of birds,
Inside the warm coats of seals and bears;
And in the wombs of mothers
We concentrate so the faces of the future
Take on our features,
And we sing our names into the ears
Of the unborn:
PCB; POP; DDT:
Cesium, technetium;
Mercury.

— Mercury, chemical element also known as quicksilver

Since his voyage to the Arctic, Drake has written other poetic works on the climate crisis. Most notably, he wrote the libretto for a choral work entitled, Earth Song, in collaboration with composer Rachel Portman. The piece premiered on September 27, 2019 at St. Paul’s Knightsbridge and was broadcast on the BBC in October of 2019. As Portman described it, Earth Song is an expression of how “humans are as one with the earth and inseparable.” Drake’s libretto incorporates lines from Greta Thunberg’s powerful speech at Davos in 2019. 

Additionally, in 2018 Drake created the libretto for The Cave, an opera on climate grief, in collaboration with composer Tansy Davies. The Cave follows “a grieving father’s quest for survival in a world devastated by climate change” and was produced in a cavernous warehouse space in London.

Ten years after his expedition, Drake still speaks passionately about the Arctic and its extraordinary light, stillness, silence, and ancient landscape, but mostly he is on a mission to expose his words about the climate crisis beyond the poetry world to create awareness and inspire change. He disagrees with Auden’s oft-quoted line, “poetry makes nothing happen” but sees his poetry as a signpost for the way forward. His commitment towards that end is what happens when you take a poet to the Arctic. 

(Top image: Poet Nick Drake in the High Arctic. Photo by Deborah Warner. Poetry excerpts by permission of Nick Drake, The Farewell Glacier, Bloodaxe Books, 2012.)

This article is part of Imagining Water, a series on artists of all genres who are making the topic of water and climate disruption a focus of their work and on the growing number of exhibitions, performances, projects and publications that are appearing in museums, galleries and public spaces around the world with water as a theme.

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Susan Hoffman Fishman is a painter, public artist and writer whose work has been exhibited in widely in museums and galleries throughout the U.S. Since 2011, all of her paintings, installations and photographs have addressed water and climate change. She co-created a national, participatory public art project, The Wave, which addresses our mutual need for and interdependence on water and which has inspired thousands of adults and children of all ages, abilities and backgrounds to protect this vital resource. Her most recent body of work calls attention to the growing number of rampikes along our shores – trees that have been exposed to salt water and died as a result of rising tides.

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

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