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#0000FF by Justin Levesque
Exhibition
Freeze-thaw
16 Jun 2018 – 22 Jul 2018
Address
- 319 Vaughan Street
- Portsmouth
New Hampshire - 03801
- United States
Each of the listed artists were fellows in The Arctic Circle’s Summer Solstice artist residency in June 2017. The residency takes place in the international territory of Svalbard, a mountainous Arctic archipelago just ten degrees from the North Pole.
About
“There is a growing discrepancy between the increasing scientific certainty about anthropogenic interference with the climate system and a decreasing concern and popular support for ambitious and effective climate policies… A number of tentative explanations of the climate paradox have been proposed, including:
climate change perceived as distant in both time and space,
the lack of a global treaty and political action,
the quest for economic growth,
the financial crisis,
the complexity of the problem leading to numbing and helplessness,
cultural filters,
cognitive dissonance,
limited individual responsibility,
an active counter-campaign
and denial as a fear-avoidance strategy.
The default response from many climate scientists and policymakers to what they perceive as a lack of the public to respond adequately to “facts” has been to increase the volume and amount of information. This approach to climate science communication has failed…”
-Per Espen Stoknes
Rethinking climate communications and the “psychological climate paradox”
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Stoknes offers the use of stories and narratives as one possible antidote to the psychological barriers that inhibit individual action in response to climate change.
First we ask: What can these new stories look like? What imaginaries are possible under the Anthropocene? What ways of representing the Arctic run the risk of perpetrating further paradox? How can we manifest a troubled relationship to images and objects? How might new technologies help or hinder the realness of a remote place or a distant time?
And further: How can we endure an encounter with catastrophic loss by allowing ourselves to sense it? How does the body filter, respond to or contain this grief? Is there resilience in the process of grieving when the land itself must be mourned? Can data be used to measure how we mourn for the disappearing Arctic? How does one ask for consent from the Arctic?
In response to these questions, Freeze-thaw presents works in the form of video, photography, sculpture, sound, VR, and performance.
