Browsing by Author "Kasumovic, Mark"

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    PICTURING CLIMATE: Steps Towards Embedding Artistic Practice into Climate Change Research
    (AMPS Proceedings, 2024) Kasumovic, Mark
    Climate change represents a paramount challenge within the contemporary era, marking a critical juncture in human history. From shifting weather patterns that threaten food systems, to rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, the impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented in scale. Without drastic action today, adapting to these impacts in the future will be more difficult and costly. However, much of the science that predicts and models climate systems and climate change is not typically seen by publics and therefore remains mystified in popular culture, hidden behind specialist terminologies. This lack of engagement with climate science could be improved by introducing new ways for climate scientists to engage with the public by employing the creativity found within the visual arts. Communication as a multidisciplinary endeavour and its ability to educate and inform the public remains a critical tool as we reach such a crisis. This paper proposes that a potential way to achieve deeper cultural communication of climate science is to establish ways of demystifying and ‘picturing’ the complexities of climate by directly embedding artistic practice into climate change research, employing an interdisciplinary approach to exploring, encouraging and enhancing collaboration between visual artists and climate science communities. This can result in a greater connection between climate science and communities by bridging the gap between specialist knowledge and public understanding of critical issues via a visual language. This paper acknowledges the principle that understanding the anthropogenic cause of climate change is the strongest predictor of climate change risk perceptions. Thus, raising climate literacy through a shared cultural vocabulary is vital to public engagement and support for climate actions. A shift from representing the past effects of climate change through alarming imagery to one more representative of how climates are understood and studied (such as via prediction, modelling and curiosity) can help shift the perception of climate change from ‘unchangeable’ to that of a participatory problem that can be overcome through collaboration.