The Cape Farewell Foundation in Canada announced details today of a unique, visionary and powerful four-month cultural engagement on one of the most pressing issues of our time— climate change.

The Carbon 14: Climate is Culture Exhibition + Festival will take place between October 2013 and February 2014, encompassing multifaceted programs, including a major exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum’s (ROM) Centre for Contemporary Culture, a performing arts festival with The Theatre Centre, and a rich series of public programs and events.

As the centrepiece, the Carbon 14: Climate is Culture exhibition at the ROM opens October 19, 2013 – February 2, 2014. The exhibition will include bold collaborative projects by: Zacharias Kunuk + Ian Mauro, Myfanwy MacLeod + Janna Levitt, Mel Chin, Lisa Steele + Kim Tomczak, Sharon Switzer, Minerva Cuevas, Melanie Gilligan + Tom Ackers, Donald Weber, David Buckland + Tom Rand, and Jaco Ishulutaq.

The Carbon 14: Climate is Culture exhibition was produced by Cape Farewell Foundation in partnership with ROM Contemporary Culture and is curated by David Buckland and Claire Sykes.

“Confronting the facts around global climate change, the artists participating in Carbon 14: Climate is Culture are all responding to different aspects of this climate challenge, in poignant, nuanced, subversive, often humorous, and always passionately human ways. Subjects include explorations of a changing Arctic, the health of the oceans, bio-diversity and extinction, sustainability and new, clean technologies; and centrally questions of politics, economics, and ethics.”

– Claire Sykes, Curator and Programming Director for Cape Farewell Foundation

For 12 years, Cape Farewell has successfully brought together artists and scientists—some of the most creative and insightful minds available to us— to interrogate the reality of climate change, to address causes and envision solutions, and to imagine, design, and communicate on an emotional and human scale what a resilient and exciting future might look like. Working internationally through a rich program of expeditions, research, exhibitions, public art projects, books, films and performances, Cape Farewell, as creative agent for change and the leading cultural catalyst on climate, has successfully inspired some of our greatest storytellers to address humanity’s greatest challenge. Now Cape Farewell has a North American base in Toronto.

“The people of the City of Toronto will be proud to be the first North American city to host a Cape Farewell Festival, and to have an opportunity to present the global issue of climate change through a Canadian lens. Torontonians are concerned about their environment and the effects of climate change, and we hope that the Carbon 14: Climate is Culture Exhibition + Festival will become an important part of the Toronto calendar.”

– David Miller, Chair of Cape Farewell Foundation, Toronto

“In November 2011, on the shores of Lake Ontario, we invited twenty-five North American visual artists, film makers, musicians, writers, and advertising directors to gather in Toronto to interrogate eight ‘informers’ drawn from across the professional spectrum of climate engagement; climate scientists, economists, new energy technologists, and social scientists; on the facts of climate change. The ask from the creative minds was to engage and through a process of action-based research make artworks, plays, music, poetry that would form the basis of an exhibition at the ROM. Two years later, they have triumphed! Fourteen collaborative works will be presented as part of the Carbon 14: Climate is Culture exhibition and surrounding festival.”

– David Buckland, artist, and Founder and International Director of Cape Farewell

For further information, interview requests, or media passes to events, please contact:

Debby de Groot, MDG & Associates
647.295.2970
debby@mdgassociates.com

Click here to download the Carbon 14: Climate is Culture Exhibition + Festival Press Release.