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Photographs of blazing wildfires and stylized depictions of natural disasters dot the walls of the Palo Alto Art Center’s latest exhibition, “Earth.” The third and final installment in the center’s “Climate Connections” series, “Earth” is a celebration of the land and its gifts to humankind, and a warning to viewers of its fragility in the present day.
The “Climate Connections” series is an initiative by the Art Center to highlight artworks that address current climate catastrophe, as well as to support sustainable artistic and curatorial practices. The series’ first installment, “Fire Transforms,” focused specifically on local wildfires; the second exhibition, “Under Water,” highlighted the many facets of the relationship between humanity and water. The series also runs in parallel to the city of Palo Alto’s focus on sustainability within the community.
“The city of Palo Alto has a new sustainability plan,” Palo Alto Art Center Director Karen Kienzle said. “Presenting this series was a really wonderful way to reinforce that focus on sustainability in our work … and to really include the work of a wide range of artists working in this area. Studies have indicated that art can actually encourage discussions about climate change. These exhibitions provide a forum, a space to kind of think about climate issues and to talk about them through artwork.”
And “Earth” aims to do just that: open questions surrounding sustainability, climate consciousness and our shared planet. Juror and co-founder of local nonprofit Art + Climate Action Jodi Roberts helped the Art Center select pieces to display as a part of “Earth,” bringing her unique vision and curatorial eye to the process of presenting this exhibit.
“I didn’t have a distinct agenda when selecting works for this exhibit,” Roberts said. “I did find myself drawn to a huge variety of works. And one of the things that kept catching my attention were works that addressed the idea of the show, both in terms of the materials used, and the messaging or the representation within the work. There are works that feature repurposed materials, innovative uses of technology, new forms of printing, new inks made from natural sources, some very historical work or works that were referencing historical precedents that were more ecologically or climate friendly and their materials or their processes. I was drawn to those fuller circles of production and concept and message. There’s such a variety of works within the show, and that, to me, was actually really exciting.”
Artist Federica Armstrong has a photographic diptych on display in the exhibition, highlighting the fires that have ravaged California’s land in recent years. Full disclosure: Armstrong is an occasional contributor to this publication.
“It’s two square images of the Carr Fire (that) happened in 2018, in the area of Redding in Northern California,” Armstrong said. “I actually ended up going there assisting another photographer. … I took these images while I was actually assisting him. The two pictures are from the very first afternoon I was up there: One is a picture of a landscape with the railing in the front, it’s basically just this very charred landscape with this glowing orange sun that we’ve now become unfortunately familiar with. The other image … we took inside an actual small fire station again in the outskirts of Redding. This is a small volunteer fire station and it was just so ironic that you see this fire station that is actually burned down.”
Armstrong said she chose the diptych format for this piece, with two images presented side-by-side, to question our desensitization to the destruction of regional fires.
“I feel in a way we’ve kind of become a little too accustomed to these kinds of images,” Armstrong said. “The idea of the diptych is to show on one side how the landscape is affected, but also how human life is affected. It creates a dual vision. It’s a moment of reflection.”
Photographer Charlotta Hauksdottir also used nontraditional staging methods to reinforce her work’s message and impact; Hauksdottir removed a segment from an image of the Icelandic landscape she photographed, leaving a dark void in its place.
“The work that I have featured in ‘Earth’ is a part of a series called ‘Imprints,’” Hauksdottir said. “This particular one is called ‘Erosion.’ And because the landscape is eroding, I’m also cutting away part of it and just representing how nature is changing and how glaciers are disappearing.”
In addition to promoting climate consciousness through the voices of the artists on display within “Earth” and other recent exhibitions, Palo Alto Art Center staff is also working to ensure their work and practices are sustainable. The center’s work with Roberts as a curator mirrors their work on their own climate goals, in the hopes of promoting sustainable artists as well as sustainable presenting and curatorial practices.
“My relationship with Karen (Kienzle) actually started through Art + Climate Action,” Roberts said. “She’s been really proactive, as has the rest of the team at Palo Alto Art Center, about taking a clear-eyed view of their own practices. And so it was through that and through just applauding them in their efforts to understand their own practices, and how they might not just align themselves with Palo Alto’s climate goals, but really be a public leader within that effort. … I think that’s important too, that we bring this conversation into every exhibition, regardless of what the theme of the exhibition is, because obviously, climate change is an issue that that affects every aspect of our lives.”
Through shows like “Earth,” curators and artists alike hope to utilize art’s personal, human nature to nudge audiences and encourage reflection of the state of our climate.
“Art offers a totally different aperture for approaching the conversation surrounding climate change,” Roberts said. “What’s so great about a lot of these works is they’re not incredibly didactic. They raise a lot of questions as opposed to providing statistics or analysis or conclusions. There’s something so intensely personal and visceral about experiencing a work of art.”
Armstrong echoed Roberts’ sentiments, emphasizing the role art can play in helping us feel empowered to address problems that may feel too large to tackle.
“Art is really a way to process what is happening,” Armstrong said. “There is an exchange, there is a transformation, when we create art. There’s something of us that is put in the final product. And I think that experience of seeing a problem, seeing a situation through somebody else’s eyes, … I think that that’s really powerful. For problems that are very broad, like climate change, I think we feel very disempowered sometimes, because as individuals, maybe we don’t feel that we can do a lot. But this idea of being informed and being transformed by the art of other people, I think that that’s very important. And I think that’s ultimately what art is about: it’s about processing pain, processing difficult situations in a way that helps us elevate our suffering in a way and help us understand the complexities of issues a little bit better, even if we cannot really solve the problems themselves.”
“Earth” is on view through Aug. 19 at the Palo Alto Art Center, 1313 Newell Road, Palo Alto. Admission is free. The center is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. For more information, visit cityofpaloalto.org.
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