Individual and collective experiences of climate change are mediated simultaneously by embodied encounters with extreme weather events and by now-familiar abstractions of climate models and satellite imagery. As we grapple with the increasing dissonance between everyday life and epochal climatic and environmental change, how might we hold these intimate and remote forms of sensing in generative tension? How might we learn from the space between what we can touch, smell, see, or hear and what we can observe or study from afar?
Reflecting on Ruth Duckworth: Life as a Unity in the era of climate change, this event explores how the prescient work of sculptor Ruth Duckworth might guide us through that space, offering insight and inspiration for ways of knowing climate and its many forms of change through embodied aesthetic practice. In so doing, Duckworth points toward new forms of climate media attuned to the multiple scales of transformation—climatic, environmental, social, bodily—to which we must so urgently attend.
Join the Smart Museum for a conversation with UChicago faculty and distinguished guests. Speakers include: Saadia Mirza, American University in Paris / University of Chicago; Robert G. Pietrusko, University of Pennsylvania; and Joshi Radin, Chicago-based artist/writer; along with moderators Jessica Landau and Alexander Arroyo of UChicago’s Committee on Environment, Geography, and Urbanization (CEGU).
Admission is free. Advanced registration encouraged, as space may be limited.
Presented by CEGU and the Smart Museum of Art’s Feitler Center for Academic Inquiry.
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An initiative of the Terra Foundation for American Art in partnership with artists and organizations across the city, Art Design Chicago is a series of events and exhibitions that highlight the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities.
