The Center for Monitoring Earth Extinction Adaptations was initiated in April 2019 as a research project exploring the role and form of the arts in a world radically disrupted and altered by climate crisis. A small exhibition of printed materials, art works and ephemera is being displayed in Fenberger House. The Center’s research includes:
Re-excavating the history of art for hints and visions which may assist us in the near future.
Thinking about art as guiding or navigational devices/ techniques to help us adapt to a disrupted world.
Thinking about the role and use of art spaces in the near future, as healing and recovery centers.
Gathering and practicing skills and techniques from the arts such as attentional practices and ritual movement, as ways of developing psychological and creative resilience.

Arts in a Hot Earth: A Near Future Report

[This text was written in June 2019, before the Covid-19 Pandemic]

In the winter of 2018 I began to read as much as I could about climate change. Like most people I was conscious of this topic for many years, but felt that it was something abstract and far away in the future. This view changed radically after two or three weeks research. In early 2019 several books were published which collated the most up to date scientific data on climate change. These books seemed like apocalyptic science fiction. But everything detailed in them was referenced in the scientific literature. It seems as though sometime around 2017 - 2018 many scientists began to revise their estimates of the effects, and timing of climate change. In short, things are much worse than previously thought. The effects of climate change is not something that will happen 100 years in the future. It is happening now, and is predicted to get worse within ten to twenty years.

In 2019 several countries and capital cities declared climate emergencies. Newspapers like The Guardian in the UK changed their section header title from ‘Climate Change’ to ‘Climate Crisis’. The young Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg began her one person school strike in August 2018 aged 15. Since then she has become one of the global faces of climate activism. In the UK the activist movement known as Extinction Rebellion was formed in May 2018. Hundreds of protestors have been arrested in the UK for non violent direct action. In July 2018 Professor of Sustainability Leadership at the University of Cumbria (UK) Jem Bendell published a paper titled “Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy”. Bendell and many others think that the possibility of social collapse due to climate change is now unavoidable. In large part this will be triggered by massive changes in agricultural food production due to changing climate. This will lead to food shortages, violence and breakdown of basic social systems. Naturalist and broadcaster of famous nature documentaries Sir David Attenborough warns in the April 2019 documentary ‘Climate Change - The Facts’ that: "It may sound frightening, but the scientific evidence is that if we have not taken dramatic action within the next decade, we could face irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies."

I could go on, but I urge you to find out more. We are surrounded by a sea of information. Regarding climate change there are many very high quality news sites, editors and curated outlets available. This is particularly the case for the English language.

As someone who has been involved in the art world for many years I began to imagine how the arts might change in the near future. I am not a think tank researcher, simply a concerned citizen with a sense of vision about the things I love. So I have been gathering thoughts, ideas and predictions about the possible impacts of a world radically altered by climate change, to the arts. This is a modest and subjective vision of art in the near future. I think that it brings into focus different priorities and themes. I hope that it can help.

Global increase in art buying as art work is seen as a healing aid in difficult times, providing a sense of history and stability.
Art works dealing with spiritual, healing themes become popular.
Shrinkage of global art travel as flying becomes more expensive.
Shrinkage of global art fairs and biennales, tied to above.
Some museums/ fairs may become ‘gated’, closed off from public life and are only accessible to wealthy elites.
Resurgence in art objects made from precious metals and jewels (gold, diamond, silver), for their material value.
Increased calls for return of art works taken by museums in Western capitals. Restitution policies enacted by many museums lead to building of art centers in capitals around the world.
Increase of art’s function as psychological, spiritual healing.
Curator reverts to etymological roots of word, carer.
Emergence of new roles in museums and the art sphere such as guide/ grief counsellor/ art environmental officer/ personalized curatorial services (offering selected themes and collections for specific situation such as end of life, community relocation process etc).
Museums become public, air conditioned gathering places, healing centers.
People gather around symbolic art works in cities to find solace, community (Guernica in Madrid, Rothko chapel Houston, Hasegawa Tohaku Shourinzu Byoubu etc)
Museums display symbolic works for mass viewing (perhaps also in a nationalistic manner to revive sense of identity stability).
Art Centers become ‘Civic Recovery Centers’ (Brian Eno).
Quiet, contemplative art viewing becomes an important healing activity.
The introduction of soft, comfortable furniture and carpets in some art galleries and museums to facilitate collective viewing.
Increased interest in art’s ancient capacities to expand consciousness, facilitate contact with something bigger than self.
Increase in ‘shamanic’ or ‘ritual’ type arts, involving group participation, healing.
Resurgent interest in Goddess cults and arts.
Increased interest in art’s abilities to create new stories and myths about human-nature connections/ loss of.
Increase of re-discovering ancient local earth myths, festivals (legends, lore, superstitions etc).
Re-discovery of artists from the past with visionary thinking (e.g. Yutaka Matsuzawa, Lygia Clark, Ana Mendieta, Robert Smithson, Paul Thek, Joseph Beuys etc).
Re-writing of art history to reflect new interests and realities.
Increase in nostalgia for early history of art communes and experimental living such as Monte Verita.
Artists work like ‘war artists’, documenting the effects of climate change in communities and across the world.
Artists work as archivists of loss of ecologies and our previous ways of life.
Artists archive late capitalist ways of life (convenience stores, plastics, air travel, fossil fuels, cars etc).
Artists make art works in last ‘pocket ecologies’ (forests, beaches etc). Self directed earth art movements outdoors, works left to decay as monuments.
‘Burning Man’ style large scale art installations, sculptures in public spaces for people to gather around and commune. Many built without permission but allowed by authorities.
Increased interest and circulation of reproduction images of art (prints, posters etc), as traveling becomes more difficult.
Artists work alongside scientists to create visually appealing information in the form of charts, diagrams etc. This is a particularly strong tendency among video and digital artists who create easily understandable maps and diagrams of highly complex, non-linear systems.
Artists connect to and use real time climate data to create works of art or public installations.
Increase in local ‘art’ centers, sharing art books, looking together at art, sharing thoughts. Held in homes, community centers, schools. An important aspect of community building.
Increase in home ‘altars’, comprising religious and artistic expressions to commemorate/ grieve/ share. Reproductions of famous popular paintings which remind people of stability and nature sell well. Art provides a link to a world lost.
Decrease in museums loaning original art works, decrease in traveling global exhibitions, due to risk and increased cost.
Increase of art made digitally and printed on demand, circumventing air freight issues.
Increase in immersive art experiences, entertainments as a way to temporarily ‘forget’ critical situation (Team Lab, VR etc)
Use of immersive digital technologies to create art that assists us in coping with crisis (end of life, loss of things we love etc).
Use of Virtual Reality to enable global ‘travel’ to art museums, fairs and biennales without physical flying.
Mass outbreaks of ‘art-making’ as people decide what objects/ images are most important in their lives. Memento-making, mass movements of memory-making.
Museum cafes shift their menus to non coffee based drinks as coffee becomes expensive.
Exhibitions which mix together contemporary, modern, ancient, shamanic art increase.
There is a realization that art throughout history supported and maintained human domination over nature, however well-meaning the artist.
Art works that depict disaster, apocalypse and unrest are placed in special permanent galleries.
Documentary films warning of climate change such as Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ (2006) are bought by museums and form a part of a new collections theme.
There is a re-discovery of the work of Christian Lassen by the art world as nostalgia for colorful coral reefs and vibrant sea life increases.
Artistic and community funerals for planet earth are held in diverse ways, using music, ritual, dance, and other art forms.

Roger McDonald, 2019

Artists explore climate data, Google Arts & Culture, June 2020.