As the founder and director of the Climate Museum, which is the first museum in the US dedicated to climate change, I agree that art is critical to our ability to move towards climate justice (‘It’s positive, not apocalyptic’: can climate change art help save the planet?, 24 July). But contrary to this article’s suggestion, in our work at the museum, which mobilises arts programming to build individual and collective climate engagement, we’ve found that art doesn’t need to be positive or cheerful to inspire momentum and resolve.
The climate artwork at the centre of our last exhibition, the epic postcard mural “Someday, all this” by David Opdyke, is apocalyptic. It depicts a future in which everyone is trying to get somewhere else amid catastrophic floods, fires, and ecosystem disruption. But it is also beautiful and filled with remarkable details, some of them with a sci-fi bent, and with gallows humour (a gigantic moth destroys a Musk Mars rocket, for example). Despite its overall dystopian tone, it captured and held the attention of thousands of visitors – leaving them feeling not dispirited, but ready to engage in climate action.
