From Science to Action through Art: Four Artists Bear Witness to Climate Change
Using poetry, essay, music, and painting, four Pacific Northwest artists present work that is powerful testimony to the consequences of climate change. These artists are uniquely positioned to connect the facts of climate change with the feelings that inspire people to take action. Their goal is to transform scientific understanding into words, music, and art that make these facts deeply real, visceral, and relatable. The evening will combine visual art and birdsong, choral music and poems inspired by birds, both living and extinct, and moving essays accompanied by music bearing witness for all species threatened by climate change. You will be transported to Svalbard, listen to the London Symphony, hear tales of loss and redemption, and be inspired to take action.
The evening will begin with Natalie Niblack, whose project, “66 Birds/ 3 Degrees” is currently on display at the Beaty thorough the end of December. She will discuss how she was inspired to create 66 paintings of Pacific Northwest birds by an American National Audubon Society study that projects the future effects of climate change on North American bird species. Niblack is a painter, printmaker, and sculptor from Skagit Valley. She has been creating work about climate change for many years, and has shown her work internationally, nationally and regionally. natalieniblack.com
Holly J. Hughes is a Northwest poet and the author of Passings, a chapbook of poems about 15 extinct birds that received an American Book Award in 2017 and inspired the choral piece “Spectral Spirits” by Minneapolis composer Edie Hill, which was performed at The Cloisters in New York City by The Crossings Choir and awarded a Grammy in 2023. She’s currently co-publisher of Empty Bowl Press and directs Flying Squirrel Studio, a residency for women writers on the Olympic peninsula. hollyjhughes.com
Kathleen Dean Moore’s work combines the emotional depth of the nature essayist and the lethal logic of the philosopher. For many years Distinguished Professor of environmental ethics at Oregon State University, Kathleen’s anguish at the extinction and climate crises led her to leave academia to speak directly to the public. Her early books celebrate the wet, wild world — Riverwalking, Holdfast, Wild Comfort, etc. Her recent books come to its defense— Moral Ground, Great Tide Rising, Earth’s Wild Music, etc. She collaborates with scientists, artists, musicians, and film makers. riverwalking.net
Sarah Bassingthwaighte is a Canadian-American composer and performer, who has focused her work on social and climate justice. She spent this summer in the high Arctic as part of the Arctic Circle Residency on Climate Awareness, and is currently collaborating on climate-centered projects with the Jubilate Choir in Toronto, with video artist Nina Bouchard in Montreal, and the ATTA Simfonica Orchestra in Spain. Her album, Orchestrating the Wild, recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra, celebrates our connection to nature. sarahbassingthwaighte.org
Schedule:
- 5:00 pm: Museum doors open with Admission by Donation
- 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm: Presentation in the atrium
- 8:30 pm: Museum closed