Essay by Eric Worrall
Apparently visual art can bridge the communication gap between our distant UN overlords and the proletariat.
Published: 06 April 2024
Integrating science and the arts to deglobalise climate change adaptation
Marta Olazabal, Maria Loroño-Leturiondo, Ana Terra Amorim-Maia, William Lewis & Josune Urrutia
Nature Communications volume 15, Article number: 2971 (2024) Cite this article
Setting goals that are context-specific, relevant, and collectively shared is critical in adaptation. As necessary elements in target setting, imaginaries for adaptation and the language connected to them remain vague. Visuals produced through art-science collaborations can be great allies to (de)construct imaginaries and deglobalise discourses of adaptation.
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47400-7
The art will apparently be used to stimulate local conversations, and give local people a voice;
…
In this sense, art–science and art–policy collaborations are proliferating. However, in most cases, scientists, policymakers or adaptation practitioners seek out visual support only to help them engage the public with their work as an end-of-pipe approach17. The art-based approach that we suggest here, and that we feel necessary to deglobalise adaptation, emerges from a transdisciplinary approach and starts much earlier on in the adaptation management cycle, making the arts central to planning, decision-making, and communication.
…
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47400-7
From a masters thesis into Soviet art;
… That there was an active experimental movement in art prior to the Soviet regime is of particular interest. Russian artists were searching for new art forms to give expression of revolutionary activity.
The experimental artists were searching, for a new art form which would be the embodiment of the revolution; the expression of the new ape, the new man — the ape of the machine and of the proletariat. Utility was the measure of value for everything in the revolution and art had to conform, which accounts for art becoming a pronaganda tool to keep the goals of the revolution before the people.
The numerous art groups competed avidly for top position as the means to express the true spirit of the revolution, the measure for success being acceptance by the masses.
Among the schools there was a group called the Association of Artists of the Revolution which painted in a realistic style, in themes of the everyday life of the people and of the revolution. Naturally such depiction would be grasped easily by the average man, who was, at that time, uneducated. It was only natural for the government to support this realism since it embodied those qualities felt by the government to be essential to art — an expression of socialism understood by the people. The new art came to be called socialist realism. …
Read more: https://thekeep.eiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5500&context=theses
Perhaps we should call this climate propaganda art “Climate Realism”, in honor of the Soviet “Socialist Realism”? On the other hand, maybe putting the word “real” anywhere near climate fantasy propaganda is a step too far.
I was going to say how similar the climate action goals and art samples provided by the study authors are to soviet propaganda art, but there is a chilling difference.
Most Soviet art I have seen, including when I visited museums, the Soviets put care into drawing people’s faces. The Soviet art expresses love and family and togetherness.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no apologist for the soviet system, which was vile, brutal and repressive. But the Soviets very much wanted to convince each other and the world that Soviet Communism was an expression of love.
OK some Soviet art is jingoistic and violent rather than loving – but even the jingoistic art attempts to portray people following the leader, expressing their love for the motherland, sacrificing everything for the greater glory of the Soviet State.
The climate art presented in the study is different, it makes no attempt to mingle with and share the values of the proletariat, the climate art is detached and distant. The art provides a distant birds eye diagrammatic view of people doing the jobs they have been assigned, units in a machine, but makes no effort to explore how they feel about their chores. Climate worker ants serving the colony, each climate worker unit is expendable and interchangeable. The UN Gods of Olympus decreeing what each person’s tasks will be, and paying no attention to their feelings or individual needs.
None of the samples of climate art provided in the study above showed detailed views of people’s faces. The climate artists drew detailed diagrams of what people are supposed to be doing – but put no effort into showing how people feel about what they are doing.
Of course the Soviets are not the only Communist dictators who left us samples of their art. The Chinese communists also produce a lot of art during the Mao era, though like the Soviets they also tended to draw detailed faces.
There is an interesting historical example of faceless Communist art. The few samples of Khmer Rouge propaganda art I’ve seen often shows faceless masses serving their genocidal leader Pol Pot. Pol Pot’s face is drawn in detail, other people not so much.
Pol Pot also deviated from other communists of his age, instead of an implementing a “great leap forward” style industrialisation programme, Pol Pot attempted to turn back the clock to Year Zero. Pol Pot rejected technology and emptied the cities, forcing ordinary people to live primitive agrarian lives, tilling the land with hand tools. A lot of Pol Pot’s victims starved to death.
There are examples of Pol Pot art which show peoples faces, but most of the examples I found while searching the internet of Pol Pot art which depicts the faces of ordinary people were created by Pol Pot’s opponents. Their art mostly depicts barbaric acts of cruelty and suffering under Pol Pot’s reign.
There are also examples of climate art with detailed faces – mostly the leaders of the movement.
Am I reading too much into this artistic anomaly? I’m not exactly dealing with a large sample. The brief was to illustrate climate adaptation. But the art was also meant to engage, and engaging people usually implies an emotional connection between the viewer and the art.
Perhaps the climate artists enlisted by the study above didn’t draw detailed faces, because they just aren’t that practiced at including images of people in their pictures.
Related
