Activist Art Transcends Climate Change
Eight years after Bill McKibben, the founder of the grassroots organization 350.org, penned this quote, artists of all genres are finally heeding his clarion call. Artists are convening in Montpelier this June to tell the emotional side of being human in a changing climate. What it is like to live with climate change? They are showing us their hope and despair in an exquisite outpouring of inspired, activist eco-art.
McKibben set the stage with his “Art Sweet Art” essay. In 2009 he reflected, “It was probably the last moment I could have written it. Clearly there were lots and lots of people already thinking the same way, because ever since it’s …as if deep and moving images and sounds and words have been flooding out into the world.
“That torrent of art has been, often, deeply disturbing. It should be deeply disturbing, given what we’re doing to the earth,” he concluded.
The Goddard Gallery on Main Street in Montpelier is hosting the eco-art exhibit that continues through June 30, displaying 15 different artists in a full-throated visual chorus of response to climate change.
Two years later the community raised funds for a larger space, the Dorset Playhouse.
Like many who take up the arts following a first career, Tony Conner needed only the right moment to act.