Earth Fire Water Air: The Elements of Climate Change
Curated by Elizabeth Langhorne
Central Connecticut State University Art Galleries
New Britain, CT
March 9 – April 13, 2017
Opening Reception: March 9, 4-7pm
Closing Reception: April 12, 4-7pm
“We can register what is happening with satellites and scientific instruments, but can we register it in our imaginations, the most sensitive of all our devices? … Art, like religion, is one of the ways we digest what is happening to us, make the sense out of it that proceeds to action.” – Bill McKibben
The exhibition uses the four elements to provide a conceptual structure for the complex ecology of the changing climate. For each of the elements, we present artwork in a wide range of media by twenty artists to suggest and dramatize impacts of climate change, as well as the positive responses that communities and individuals can make. Topics include fossil fuel and alternate transportation systems (Earth), shifting climatic seasons due to warming and the fate of bees (Fire), rising sea levels and Connecticut coasts (Water), and air pollution and alternate energy sources (Air).
Featuring: Beehive Collective, Rosa Blatman, Xavier Cortada, Janet Culbertson, Alexander Dang, Ted Efremoff and Students, Olafur Eliasson & Frederik Ottesen, Lisa Goren, Mags Harries & Lajos Héder, Christopher McNulty, Ricardo Levins Morales, Carol Padburg & Students, Alexis Rockman, Julia Samuels, Scott Schuldt & Cecelia Bitz, Joseph Smolinski, Paula Winokur, Jave Yoshimoto