Art and Environmental Struggle

In the Bartels Gallery, Floor 1L

Art and Environmental Struggle brings together the work of twenty artists responding to environmental challenges occurring in their countries and communities. Presented in conjunction with an international conference at Cornell, this exhibition features artists from regions experiencing some of the most acute consequences of resource extraction and climate variation.

Included are works by Raymond Boisjoly; Tiffany Chung; Uurintuya Dagvasambuu; Nicholas Galanin; Maureen Gruben; Mona Hatoum; Tenzin Norbu Gurung; Dilyara Kaipova; Sonja Kelliher-Combs; Frederick McDonald; Meryl McMaster; Mulyana; Yinarupa Nangala; Paulo Nazareth; Jolene Rickard in collaboration with Anita Ferguson, Anita Greene, and Janice Smith; Abel Rodriguéz; Anatjari Tjakamarra; Old Walter Tjampitjinpa; and Yee I-Lann.

Emphasizing the effects of colonialism and neocolonialism, the exhibition presents works of art that call attention to the consequences of environmental damage on the food production, security, cultural independence, and general well-being of communities that have historically contributed the least to the current crisis. It explores specific, local impacts of geopolitical forces and extractive industries, as well as Indigenous concepts of the value and personhood of all living things. The compelling ways that artists confront these crucial topics, simultaneously with the presentation of critical research at a major conference, represents a means for engaging contemporary thinking about this most universally human of issues.

This exhibition was curated by Kate Addleman-Frankel, the Gary and Ellen Davis Curator of Photography; Ellen Avril, chief curator and the Judith H. Stoikov Curator of Asian Art; and Andrew C. Weislogel, the Seymour R. Askin, Jr. ’47 Curator, Earlier European and American Art. It has been supported by generous gifts endowed in memory of Elizabeth Miller Francis ’47 and from Younghee Kim-Wait.