CC + MA

From forest fires in the American West and desertification in northern China to climate migration in coastal Louisiana and Latin America, the ongoing climate emergency is a global problem that demands geographically dispersed, collaborative, non-hierarchical, and non-extractive modes of representation and scholarship.

Rather than producing work fueled by dread and anxiety, which risks inducing political paralysis, we propose a project that combines scholarship, media arts, and public participation to depict the lived experience of communities at the front lines of the climate emergency.

We are a group of scholars and media makers who share an urgent concern for climate change, the socio-economic forces that drive it, and the manifold environmental problems and forms of social inequality it amplifies.

We seek to employ our knowledge and skills to create empowering and public-facing modes of media scholarship that will not only help catalyze the cultural change necessary to address these overlapping challenges, but also address the experiential and representational problems they pose.

In progress and upcoming projects seek to:

Showcase exemplary media arts responses to climate crisis through public screenings and discussions

Explore innovative approaches through annual workshops that exhibit works-in-progress by participants

Commission and publish new scholarship and artists’ writings about environmental media

Develop web platforms and exhibitions where related projects can be distributed and discussed