New art exhibition at UIC explores societal responses to climate change - NBC Chicago
UIC art exhibit explores societal responses to climate change - NBC Chicago
Visual artist Cydney Lewis has always been concerned about our planet.
A lot of the materials she ends up using are found while walking throughout her neighborhood.
“I know that the climate is changing, and it’s going to change, and it’s really about how are we going to be resilient and adapt to the change,” Lew said.
She is one of eight artists featured in a new art exhibition at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Gallery 400 called "Earthly Visions: Inside the Climate Crisis."
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"This is something we are all a part of, we’re all living through, and we really think that these artists are showing us the possibilities for what the future might be, how we might rethink what we are doing now," said Lorelei Stewart, gallery director.
Visual artist Jeremy Bolen created an installation that visualizes how the sky might appear if the atmosphere were injected with sulfur to create a cooling effect. Bolen told NBC Chicago that he is concerned about the unintended consequences of our actions or interventions.
Photographer Terry Evans is showing off a series of prints focusing on a 300-plus year old tree that sits in Jackson Park.
"I think that beauty and nature is an important relationship that we need to remember and connect with as we are experiencing the sorry and the grief and damages of climate change," the photographer said.
Another artist is exploring alternative futures led by indigenous people, and yet another reconceptualizes caring for the environment. The hope is that, as a society, much needed change can be created.
"These young folks here at UIC are really invested in the question," Stewart said.
“Earthly Visions: Inside the Climate Crisis” is on display at UIC’s Gallery 400 through mid-December.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.