Actors from Witnesses: In Dialogue about Climate Change with Scientists and Artists

Watch the full panel recording from Mana Contemporary or Earth Institute: https://www.manacontemporary.com/event/actors-from-witnesses/

https://www.earth.columbia.edu/videos/view/actors-from-witnesses

I published the below blog post on Medium: https://medium.com/@carolinejuang/actors-from-witnesses-in-dialogue-about-climate-change-with-scientists-and-artists-80dae05978a2

One energizing hour of the connection of art and science for climate action on the individual and collective scale. I joined Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) Research Professor Robin Bell and two highly acclaimed artists, pastel artist Zaria Forman and time/sound artist Jeff Frost, on a panel discussing "Actors from Witnesses" created in partnership with Mana Contemporary, the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and the Columbia Climate School.

Actors from Witnesses social media poster.

From the program description: "When art meets science, those who were once witnesses or observers of an issue can become active participants in advancing change." Robin moderated our discussion reflecting on our own visceral, personal experiences that the planet is changing. We then discussed the importance of art for making an emotional connection with science and the environment—to convey beauty in a digestible way (like in Zaria’s glacier paintings), to connect with the human curiosity and awe (like with Jeff’s “California on Fire” film), to bridge the gap between scientific fact and the visceral feeling as if you’re standing within the landscape affected by climate change, motivating the viewer to want to help.

Engaging with media (All That We Can Save by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson & Katharine K. Wilkinson), listening to the Indigenous voices and voices of climate activists, sending the message to family and to people of differing political opinions (How to Save a Planet), making art, researching the science, participating in local to national politics to change public policy. We all agreed, there’s no one way except to use what you have in your toolbox that empowers you.

We finished with some fun questions ("where would you take people next with your art?" "to space!") and ended on a urgent note of combatting the larger structures that are making the largest negative impact on climate.

Together, we as global citizens have the collective power to combat climate change, and I hope that this panel urges all of the listeners to transform their emotions into action.

Robin, Caroline, Jeff, and Zaria in conversation.

In the online panel ‘Actors from Witnesses,’ artists and scientists discuss how they inspire action against climate change

Updated April 12, 2021: The Columbia Daily Spectator, an independent student newspaper at Columbia, covered the panel event in an article by Staff Writer Victoria Irizarry Sanabria. Read below for an excerpt:

While Forman focuses on ice, artist Jeff Frost’s focus is on fire. He has spent five years studying wildfires and became a firefighter in order to capture images, time-lapses, and videos as these disasters occur. After witnessing 70 wildfires, Frost created “California On Fire,” a 25-minute film about the five stages of grief, presented through the destruction caused by wildfires and climate change. Regarding climate change, his wake-up call occurred five years ago when he witnessed a wildfire while driving and decided to create a timelapse of the event for as long as he could.

Together, these two artists will be displaying some of their artworks in the exhibition “Implied Scale: Confronting the Enormity of Climate Change,” which will be presented at Mana Contemporary from April 22 to July 22.

Unlike these two artists, Juang takes a more scientific approach to her art. Juang is a Ph.D. student in the department of earth and environmental sciences, based at the Tree Ring Lab at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Passionate about the intersection of art and science, she creates online drawings and comics about science and the importance of accessibility in STEM fields. She has always been interested in science, but climate change took a personal meaning as it snowed less and less each year in her Long Island home while growing up.

...

“I feel like art has this twofold thing where, because it’s impacting humans on such a massive and terrible scale, art is there to help people who are experiencing climate change reflect on their own lives and their grief of how the Earth is changing. On the other side, it’s appreciating the beauty of nature that is being destroyed by climate change, and how we need to act on fixing that,” Juang said.

Read the full article on The Columbia Daily Spectator.