Sink or Swim: Climate Futures

This show presents projects by Cheyenne Concepcion, Sean Desiree, Koyotlzintli, Randi Renate, and Daniel Shieh conceived in response to an open call to address the urgency, enormity, and challenges of climate change. In 2021, the UN Panel on Climate Change reported that 1.5 degrees C global temperature within the next 20 years is unavoidable, but there is a window of opportunity for global action to slow the current warming trend and consequential environmental destruction. We are at once on the tipping point of irreparable ecological devastation and at the dawn of a new age of a Green era. Reduction of future emissions paired with technologies for carbon sinking [*pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and trapping it in rock or underwater] may temper the warming phenomena. Or, the rising temperatures may further melt our glaciers, increasing ocean levels, leaving coastal cities underwater. In this scenario, we see a reversal of the classical metaphor, sinking [carbon] is preferable to swimming. 

The traditional sink or swim metaphor also imagines a situation where an individual is left on their own to succeed or fail, but the current climate crisis demands a rejection of individualistic thinking and an emphasis on collective action. These artists tackle how the matrices of race, gender, and class may intersect a Green future and what we can learn from historically vulnerable, but thriving communities to help navigate this challenge.

September 10, 2022 - March 26, 2023