Art and climate research: a collaboration with potential

21 March 2024, by CLICCS News

Photo: Design by Nielsen/Schurr, Image material: Ketan Rajput/Unsplash

Video performance on different future scenarios of the Arctic permafrost.

The transfer project "Portraits of Climate" brings art and science together. In five teams, the artists exchange ideas with one or more researchers over a period of several months. The aim is to jointly create an artwork. Along the way, the teams also explore the process of collaboration. All researchers work at the Cluster of Excellence for climate research CLICCS.

"In 'Portraits of Climate', we understand art and science as expressions of the same exploratory and creative human nature," says Dr. Anna Pagnone, environmental physicist and initiator of the CLICCS project. "The collaboration has the potential to broaden horizons and create new spaces for thinking. This approach can inspire us to face the challenges of future climate change differently."

The different approaches combine objective and subjective, human and nature: for one team, focuses on research questions about an untouched forest in Hamburg's port area that is seen as a kind of model for the future. Others are inspired by the aesthetic and emotional expression in mathematical formulas or calligraphic repetitions. Still others are interested in the sensory experience of waves, wind, erosion combined with future scenarios.

All teams thus present aspects of climate change in their very own way. This is also reflected in the different formats that have been planned so far: video, paintings and installations. The resulting artworks will be presented to the public in an exhibition starting this fall.