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In the video spot on Eve Mosher's HighWaterLine (2007), Deborah Balk (Associate Director at the CUNY Institute for Demographic Research) describes the how her approach makes climate education "nonthreatening" by engaging in education through art. One of HighWaterLine's strengths as a piece of educational performance art, for me, is how it manages to make something … Continue reading Art as nonthreatening and “New York 2007” as a medium

The majority of the art we examined this quarter touches on religion or mysticism in some capacity, whether that be directly or indirectly. The narratives of most religions are centered on invoking a higher state of consciousness in oneself. However, what underlies this foundation is the perpetual human drama, i.e. every person walking on earth … Continue reading Decisions, Decisions: The Intersection of Climate Art, Religious Narratives, and Mysticism

Beasts of the Southern Wild confronts themes of environmental crisis, social resilience, and the intersection of racial diversity of environmental injustice. However, the film also foregrounds the friction between feminism and the environment. While the Bathtub’s residents wait for the storm to arrive, the community decides who should leave and who is “man” enough to … Continue reading Beasts of the Southern Wild & Ecofeminism

I like to think that I am, on a daily basis, passionate about preserving the natural beauty of planet Earth, conscious of social and political actions towards climate change, and committed to living a sustainable lifestyle. But on Monday morning, while I was looking through the materials for class, I was filled with feelings of … Continue reading Shared Humanity in Cry You One

Last Wednesday, when our groups were asked to go back and think about something that we felt was missed in our conversations about climate change, the concept our group came back to was religion and the mysticism that surrounded lots of climate art. What we noticed was that a lot of the art in this … Continue reading Mysticism in Climate Art

Everyone’s favorite question is back again, this time with a quarter of context. Yet an answer remains elusive. What makes something a piece of ‘climate change’ art? I won’t pretend to have a conclusive answer – and I doubt there even is one – but I have noticed several recurring themes in the work we’ve … Continue reading Back to the beginning: what makes something ‘Climate Change Art?’

As we concluded the course on Wednesday with a quick reflection of the quarter, I began to consider deeply how I would use the topics we learned to create proactive change to the community in the future. Coming into the class, I thought we would simply be learning how to create effective media content that … Continue reading Where do we go from here?

            As I listened through the album of Cry You One and read the descriptions of its larger experience provided by the playbill and the essay by David Bruin, one of the concepts that I kept coming back to was that of a ritual. While Cry You One contained many different elements of all kinds … Continue reading Cry You One and Rituals of Community

Beasts of the Southern Wild is one of the more enigmatic films I have seen. Its hard not to fall for the cinematic beauty: the nature it is set in, the unbelievable power its main characters hold the camera with. Quvenzhané Wallis and Dwight Henry, who play Hushpuppy and Wink, were both amateur actors. Wallis … Continue reading The Lasting Ambiguity of Beasts

Listening/looking at the pieces for today, I was very struck by the approach to an audience that most of these pieces make. Jetnil Kijiner's spoken word poetry is very accessible and immediately impactful. The High Water Line project literally engages people as it is being created. And these messages that are being shared are very … Continue reading Accessibility of a piece’s message