Words: Daniel Simons

In 2005, Bill Mckibben, one of the world’s leading environmental thinkers and activists, wrote an article titled, ‘What the Warming World Needs Now is Art, Sweet Art.’ In the piece, he argued that ‘even though we know that we’re living through the biggest thing that’s happened since civilization emerged, we don’t know it. It hasn’t 'registered in our guts.’

Mckibben's words of wisdom touch on what science communicators dub 'the failure of the information-deficit model.' In the past, we believed that the mere dissemination of information and science would prompt us to act in our own best interest. Not so. Turns out humans are stubborn and irrational creatures. That's why we need art.

Great art confronts us. It can jolt us out of our slumber and let us feel the truth in our bones. It articulates truths in a universal language and catalyses urgent conversations.

As the intertwined social and environmental crises escalate, we need more art, better art, bigger, bolder, brazen and unrelenting. Art that takes the urgency of now as its canvas. Art that cuts through the noise and lets us feel the burn. Art that confronts us, art that nurtures us, art that holds our hand, reminds us of the awe-inspiring beauty in this world that we must fight to protect, art that tells us we are not alone.

Now is the time for art that romances us into wanting to stand up for what we believe in, or fall in love with visions of a better tomorrow. Art that seeds wonder and urgency and moves us at the speed and scale that the world demands of us.

Art can come in many forms, from novels and movies to poems and music, but sometimes the most powerful art is the type that we can feel and taste and touch, and walk through.

Here is a list of some of the world’s most inspirational and impactful environmental art projects of recent times.

Ice Watch

Olafur Eliasson and Minik Rosing

In 2015 the Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson and geologist Minik Rosing ‘harvested’ free-floating ice from a fjord outside Nuuk in Greenland. The icebergs, which weighed over 80 tons and were over 65 feet in circumference, were taken to Paris where they were assembled in a circular, clock-like formation outside the Place du Pantheon.

The artwork let spectators touch the ice and be touched by the ice. As it evaporated into their hands and onto the pavement they were forced to acknowledge their involvement in the rapid transformation of our climate and the impact it will have on our oceans and our drinking water. The artwork aroused feelings of ‘proximity and presence’ with the hope of inspiring systemic change.

Ice Watch was presented to coincide with the UN IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report on Climate Change and was later used to raise global awareness around the COP21 climate conference. More recently it exhibited in London and it will soon feature at COP28.

Pollution Pods

Michael Pinsky

Listed by Artnet as one of the 100 works of art that defined the decade, Michael Pinsky’s Pollution Pods breathed new life into the idea of ‘immersive art.’

Exhibiting everywhere from the TED Annual Conference to COP 25 and 26, the artwork consisted of five interconnected geodesic domes that contained a carefully mixed recipe of ozone, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide, which accurately reflected the pollution levels of London, San Paolo, Beijing and New Deli.

Participants experienced the pods as their pollution levels increased and the climate evolved from dry and cold to hot and humid.

The pods were also part of a 4-year ‘climart’ study by The Institute of Psychology at NTNU in Norway, which researched how audiences are affected by climate-related artworks.

Animals

Calder Kamin

Calder Kamin's whimsical sculptures and animations breathe new life into discarded materials. With an ingenious eye for seeing beauty in the mundane, she transforms trash into fantastical creatures that seem to leap, flutter, and swim before our eyes. Though constructed from society's cast-offs - bottle caps, straws, packaging materials - her art contains timely messages about sustainability.

Kamin aims to nurture wonder in viewers while encouraging them to rethink waste and consider how even the most unlikely scraps can be reimagined into art.

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the beloved film The Little Mermaid, Calder Kamin collaborated with Disney Channel on a series of pieces highlighting the pressing issue of ocean plastic pollution. The imaginative works remind viewers of the urgent need to reduce single-use plastics.

With her imaginative upcycling of plastics, Kamin hopes to inspire kids and families to care for oceans and sea creatures. The pieces call us to treasure both land and sea by making more sustainable choices.

The Climate Clock

Gan Golan and Andrew Boyd

Going live on the 19th of September 2020, the Climate Clock is a globally synchronised time keeper that counts down how long we have to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.

The first Climate Clock exhibited was 80 feet wide and ran across New York’s Union Square. Since then it has featured across the world and has sparked a global movement.

The Clock was created by climate activists Gan Golan and Andrew Boyd, artist Katie Peyton Hofstadter and technologist Adrian Carpenter.

Although there had been carbon and climate websites and art exhibitions before, The Climate Clock is the first project to focus on enabling globally synchronised clocks all around the world.

After an attempt to launch the clock with Greta Thurnberg was thwarted by UN security, the project was eventually launched as part of New York’s Climate Week, where it captured the public imagination - being covered by over 450 news outlets across 40 countries, and being the New York Times’ most popular story of the day.

Since then clocks have been embraced all across the globe, drawing attention to the projects campaigns and reminding us all of #TheMostImportantNumberInTheWorld, and urging us to #ActInTime.

Shhh

Aurora Robson

Aurora Robson's magical mushroom installation Shhh transforms plastic waste into inspiring art. Constructed from large format 3D printed plastic debris and illuminated with fibre optics, the fantastical fungi seem to organically sprout across the landscape blending synthetic with natural.

The project was inspired by the bioluminescent Jack-O-Lantern mushroom and every sculpture in the park was 3d scanned from a mushroom found in nature or a hand sculpted playful counterpart. As a multimedia artist focused on intercepting and upcycling plastic debris, Robson intends the work to soften divisions between nature and culture.

The glowing mushrooms celebrate the mysteries of the environment while demonstrating plastic's potential for art and design. By repurposing waste into sculpture, Robson makes an artistic statement about sustainability, creating a work that honours nature, without doing any harm to nature.

Her innovative spirit empowers creative solutions to plastic pollution, and highlights how forward-thinking art can illuminate ecological issues and inspire collective environmental action.

Aurora is also the founding member of Project Vortex, an international collective of artists, designers and architects actively focused on the challenges of plastic consumption and pollution. pollution.

Projecting Change - Empire State Building

Louie Psihoyos and visual artist Travis Threlkel

In 2015, the Oceanic Preservation Society’s provocative documentary Racing Extinction brought images of endangered species to an unlikely canvas - the facade of the Empire State Building. After the film's premiere, a series of larger-than-life projections lit up the New York City landmark to spotlight threatened animals. The awe-inspiring event was the brainchild of director Louie Psihoyos (Racing Extinction, The Cove), who sought to grab public attention and spur action on mass extinction.

Using state-of-the-art projection technology, Racing Extinction cast colourful images of whales, birds, elephants, and other endangered species, across the building's limestone and granite surfaces. The towering projections transformed one of the world's most recognizable skyscrapers into a massive public art display for conservation. By scaling endangered creatures to skyscraper-size, the visually striking event underscored how human activities threaten these animals' survival.

Released in collaboration with the Discovery Channel, Racing Extinction garnered over 36 million views within the first 24 hours and was voted the Best Green Film of the Decade in 2021. The team’s Empire State Building takeover exemplifies how large-scale art projects, when coupled with powerful documentary films, can inspire global change on ecological issues.

Minimum Monument: Art as Emergency

Néle Azevedo

Brazilian artist Néle Azevedo crafts evocative miniature ice sculptures that highlight climate change's urgent threat. Meticulously shaping detailed figures of men, women and children, she places them in public spaces where their frozen forms gradually melt away. Ranging from just 5 to over 5,000 icy statues, the installations serve as chilling metaphors for human transience and our fading time to act on global warming.

As meltwater pools around their feet, the eerily lifelike sculptures seem to cry out with their last frozen breaths, underscoring the ephemerality of life. Their impermanence underscores the need for action before it's too late.

Azevedo's evocative works have been exhibited globally from Berlin to São Paulo. As the icy men, women and children morph into oblivion, they convey a stark visual message - in the face of climate change, time is running out for us all.

By confronting audiences with the urgent plight of the planet, Azevedo hopes her vanishing sculptures will spur viewers to take action while there's still time left to make a difference.