Arousing Public Attention on Sea Level Rise in New Zealand through Art-Science Collaboration

Abstract

In New Zealand, climate scientists predict that climate change-induced sea level rise will have an earlier and greater impact on coastal communities than previously anticipated. In Auckland, the “City of Sails,” Aucklanders’ prize the opportunity to sail on the ocean and live near the beach. However, in 2019 Auckland Council released information that by 2060, a projected increase of 50 cm sea level rise would inundate the homes of 43,000 citizens. If citizens are to safeguard their lifestyles, they need to make effective decisions about how and where they choose to live. While artists are not often qualified to disseminate scientific knowledge, they are able to offer artistic comprehension through aesthetic intelligence, experientiality, and the creation of mental imagery. Building on this position, this chapter explores how an art-science exhibition, Blue Radius, deployed a range of sensorial, emotional, and scientific perspectives to imaginatively engage citizens with the phenomena of climate change-induced sea level rise and present relevant scientific information to assist citizens develop informed decision-making skills.

1. Introduction

In this chapter, I hypothesise that artist-scientist collaborations can help to generate discrete engagement strategies that arouse public attention towards consciously and effectively engaging with climate and ecological science. The Blue Radius art exhibition (hereafter Blue Radius) was designed to raise public awareness of climate change-induced sea-level rise with the aim of exploring how art-science collaborations can help citizens to navigate, accept, and understand the future to make better environment-influenced decisions.

Human behaviours and activities have been changing the climate and ecology since industrialisation began. From disappearing ice to plastics in our food chain, in a little over 100 years we have speeded up the process of global warming by nearly doubling the volume of carbon in our atmosphere. This excess carbon is a major factor in causing average sea levels to rise at an alarming speed [1]. Also, as glaciers and ice sheets melt, the volume of the ocean is expanding as the water warms [2]. In addition to the problem of sea level rise, is the ongoing damage caused to marine ecology through activities like coastal sandmining for construction and marina construction on fragile ecological sites, which destroy the seabed environment [3, 4].

However, not all sea level rise is due to climate change. In countries that sit on tectonic plate boundaries, such as New Zealand, the coastline is also sinking due to “vertical land movement” (Figure 1) [5]. This is expected to accelerate the impact of climate change-induced sea level rise in high-population areas such as the Auckland region—currently 1,715,600 citizens with a population density of 347 people per km 2 (June 2021) [6]. Current safeguarding choices focus on coastline protection using sea walls and flood defences, adapting buildings and roads, or by retreating from “at-risk” areas [7]. However, environmental scientists, such as Professor Judy Lawrence and Dr. Paula Blackett, are calling for a “shift in mindset” where citizens support longer term solutions to protect future generations using relevant, accessible information to inform better decision-making [8].

Figure 1.

Map of New Zealand showing areas impacted by sea level rise (Image Credit: Auckland Council).

It is beyond doubt that present modes of culture and lifestyles are contributing towards the climatic and ecological problems. But how society chooses to respond to these multiple ecological crises will determine its future [9]. In the most recent report by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), experts stress that “if human behaviours do not change then existing climate trends will worsen” [10]. Therefore, if we are to safeguard the future, we must come to terms with our unsustainable relationship with nature. We need to learn about the consequences that have been unleashed and embrace ways to live more sustainably so that we do not endanger the opportunities for future generations, both human and nonhuman, to meet their basic needs. Sustainable development involves the creation of new things—such as environments, objects, and lifestyles—but also new visions and concepts that can support ethical, proactive, and optimistic future development [11].

This is where art can help “summon the future” by enabling us to perceive with new eyes, new minds, and new awareness [12]. But these possible futures must also include more holistic perspectives that show compassion and empathy for the creatures we live with. To this end, art can promote a change in attitude that involves “joy, ingenuity, self-respect, and a responsible attitude” [11], all of which can be highly effective in helping communities to see themselves as part of the nature/culture continuum [13].

Art helps to develop aesthetic intelligence, which is the human capacity to understand beauty; “where something deep within us is touched and fills us with delight” [14]. Aesthetic intelligence is a perceptual communication that arises through embodied and social experience: “a call-and-response between [self] and place” that occurs through experiences, memories, and making connections [15]. Ecological art highlights the interdependence between society and nature, commodities and matter. Its focus is on the interrelationships between the physical and the biological, cultural, political, and historical aspects of ecological systems. Art with an ecological focus seeks to reclaim, restore, or remediate natural environments. It informs the public about the environmental problems we face and aims to re-envision ecological relationships, proposing new possibilities for co-existence, sustainability, and healing [16, 17].

While artists are not often qualified to spread scientific knowledge, nor explain the environmental effects of decisions made in society they are able to offer artistic comprehension of life-based on aesthetic intelligence—through the experiential and observed, and the development of one’s own mental images, public expression, and what can be visualised [11, 14]. When artists work with scientists they can create new awareness of the climate crisis and help citizens to perceive the future with new perspectives. “[T]he combination of science and artistic expression [can] bridge the emotional divide and penetrate the audience’s consciousness with a glimpse of reality” [18]. “Critical and creative thinking […] provide a unique and innovative way to engage with both the challenges and opportunities arising from climate change” [19].

2. Methodology

I used a collaborative art-science exhibition and engagement programme as a methodology to present a range of perspectives around the impacts that climate change induced sea level rise pose for the community. Blue Radius was presented at Depot Artspace, a community gallery in one of Auckland’s many coastal suburbs for a four-week period from 3 to 28 September 2022. It comprised of exhibits by artists, activists, scientists, and organisations, and was the venue for several motivational talks by activists and scientists.

The exhibition aimed to present:

• connections between human activities and their impacts on the ocean and marine ecology

• adaptation options for citizens in response to sea level rise impacts

• the potential for creative engagement to help citizens understand more about the impacts of climate change induced sea level rise

2.1 Questions

This study was structured around answering the following research questions:

1. How can we develop more holistic perspectives to improve relationships with oceans and marine ecology?

2. How can we learn to engage with the loss of human control over our natural environment that climate change imposes?

3. What role can creative engagement play in helping us to explore these challenges?

2.2 Exhibition components

Blue Radius brings together the work of artists, activists, scientists, and organisations who reflected upon a range of perspectives as impetus for the public to consider their own positions and support to guide better decision-making about how they will continue to live in their places (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Diagram identifying the various elements of the exhibition used to engage viewers (Image credit: Laura Donkers).

The exhibition introduced the following works:

• Land Radius|2—an audio-visual exchange between artists, scientists, community members, and activists who share testimony of their observations and frustrations about the ecological emergencies happening in the Haruaki Gulf Marine Park. Directed by Laura Donkers, this meditative film developed awareness of human interdependence with nature and individual perspectives affecting a range of environments and communities.

• My Coastal Future—a new “Serious Game” created especially for the exhibition by NIWA (New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research), provided the player with the experience of decision-making about their coastal property as the sea level rises. The player could decide to build a seawall, move their house, or move elsewhere. The game introduced several models that include costings and worst case/least case scenarios to allow some elements of chance to enter the game and make it more of an experience for the player in the hope that key information would stick in their mind.

• Coast Under Threat—is a photographic essay by fine art photographer Stephen Perry that documents the deteriorating structures introduced by authorities and individuals as hard engineering to hold back nature. Piles of imported stones, concrete, and rusty steel are photographed far from the cliff face presenting evidence of their temporary nature. This misguided enthusiasm is repeated by current cliff-top dwellers who instal ever more elaborate constructions to hold back the elements. When will it stop?

• Tuakana Teina—takes center stage in the exhibition. A “Carbon Stack” created by Bianca Ranson and Te Aata Rangimarie Smith, forms a towering, tactile, three-dimensional object to stimulate pro-environmental consciousness. It promotes more sustainable ways of living through community food growing and taking an activist’s approach highlighting the destruction of Kororā, Little Blue Penguin, habitats due to construction of a controversial 140-berth marina on Waiheke Island. This work involves 300 piles being rammed into the seabed, causing a section of active Kororā habitat to be destroyed.

• Not Quite a Church | Inciting Public Gathering—is the work of Nââwié Tutugoro, which references the raid on Camp Kororā, the activist’s camp on Waiheke Island.

• Ngā Aua Rere Kaharunga—a woven sculpture by Atareta Black who weaves traditional Māori knowledge, genealogy, and traditional stories to convey relationships to the sea, land, and environment

3. Analysis

Blue Radius brought together art and science perspectives to drive home the immediacy of climate change—something so large, world-altering, and seemingly too distant to fathom—by looking to local manifestations of ecological collapse that we could be preventing. It was a collaboration between artists, scientists, organisations and businesses that presented unique sensorial, emotional and scientific perspectives to illustrate how human choice influences our ability to contemplate, respond to, and act on the ecological challenges we have created. The exhibition proposed that a more holistic perspective would enable people to confront how present modes of living diminish not only our lives but also the prospects of future generations.

The exhibition took place in Auckland, which is New Zealand’s largest city. It is home to many harbours and marinas with moorings for more than 500,000 sailboats and yachts, giving rise to its nickname, the “City of Sails.” With a coastline extending to 3200 km, living with the ocean is part of Aucklanders’ identities, as an estimated 25% of households own at least one boat, and living with a beach view is highly sought after. However, sea level rise threatens this idyll. In 2019 newspapers were widely reporting new research released by Auckland Council that by 2060 a projected increase of 50 cm sea level rise, increased storm surges, high tides, and large waves would mean that the homes of more than 43,000 Aucklanders will be inundated and leave up to 30% of the city center at risk [20, 21, 22].

Considering this situation, Blue Radius sought to present climate change and human decision-making as the key issues prompting sea level rise and other ecological emergencies taking place along Auckland’s coastlines. Spanning photography, sculpture, audio-visual installation, and video gaming, Blue Radius reflected on the function of art as a platform for critical engagement that juxtaposed the perspectives of artists and activists, scientists and organisations to examine the impact of sea level rise on the lives of citizens. It sought to change perceptions of climate and ecological crises by offering a range of spatial interventions for gallery visitors to navigate, using observational imagery, audio-visual testimony, an interactive “Serious” game, and the confronting spectacle of an eight-cubic meter Carbon Stack made of layered hay, coffee husks, and dried leaves, placed right in the middle of the gallery space (Figure 3).

Figure 3.

Blue Radius exhibition view (Image Credit: Laura Donkers).

At two-meters high, Tuakana Teina disrupted views across the gallery. Visitors were at times perplexed by its presence: “it’s impossible to avoid, there it is—everywhere you look!”, “a larger-than-life structure that gets in the way”, “its spoiling my view of the other works”, “it blocked my view of the speakers”. The Carbon Stack concept belongs to Richard Wallis, founder of The Carbon Cycle Company, and inventor of the Carbon Composter who helps individuals, companies, and communities to reduce CO₂ emissions by composting local food waste. Having a store of carbon beside your community compost heap ensures that local food waste can be properly composted down to a beneficial growing medium.

Wallis created a composting system with Bianca Ranson at the community garden at her local marae in Waiheke Island. Ranson chose to use the idea of the Carbon Stack as a metaphor for healing environmental and societal ills, identifying that “Climate justice starts with those most vulnerable in our community including our taonga (treasure) species. Extraction, pollution, and governance have left our moana (ocean) in a biodiversity crisis, facing ecological collapse. The mauri (life force) of our moana is under threat.”

Her “elephant-sized” Carbon Stack is decorated with a shredded 1000-page court injunction and a Pohutukawa tree that was ripped out by the private developers who were building the unwelcome luxury 140-berth marina. She, along with 31 other members of her community, were each sanctioned with a trespassing injunction and given a $750,000 fine for swimming in their own bay in protest at the construction work that destroyed the habitats of the nesting Kororā (native Little Blue Penguin). The concept of her work, Tuakana Teina, highlights the Māori belief that all valued species such as the Kororā “come before us in our whakapapa (genealogy). Our relationship to them is tapu (sacred) and we have an inherent responsibility to protect them.” The Carbon Stack contributes to the composting of all food waste on Waiheke Island. When these artefacts become nutrient-rich soil and food, they will feed the hungry stomachs of those making this urgent stand at a time of climate crisis and biodiversity loss (Figure 4).

Figure 4.

Family playing my coastal futures game (Image credit: Laura Donkers).

NIWA’s My Coastal Futures Game afforded a very different experience to visitors. Its accessible format invited participation, which was for all ages from 10 years upwards. The game took you through a decision-making process in around 5 minutes. Its purpose was to help players understand some of the science of climate change and the things we can do to combat it both individually and, with their families, schools and communities (Figure 3). The idea was to bring the impact of changing climate, rising seas, and worsening storms that damage the coastline into the hands of the players to make decisions about their coastal property as the sea level rises. All is not lost, there are ways you can adapt. You can build a seawall, move your house back on the section, or move elsewhere. What you choose is up to you but watch out—things can change quickly! Spend your money wisely to determine your coastal future.

NIWA, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, is New Zealand’s Crown Research Institute for climate, freshwater and marine science. They provide decision makers with the science-based information they need to make informed choices in a changing world.

3.1 Effective decision-making around sea level rise impacts

Blue Radius presented a local exploration of the ecological emergencies taking place along Auckland’s coastlines and how human activity was inducing climate breakdown. It looked at the ways humans damage local marine ecology through ongoing extractive practices by mining coastal sand for construction that destroys seabed environments, while permits are granted for marina construction on fragile ecological sites. The exhibition proposed that a more holistic perspective would confront how our present modes of living diminish not only our lives but also the prospects of future generations. Building on our human capacities to innovate is an important way to motivate action [12] but our innovative capacities must include compassion and empathy for the non-human entities we live with and rely on for our continued prosperity.

Spanning photography, sculpture, audio-visual installation, and video gaming, Blue Radius reflected on the function of art as a platform for critical engagement that juxtaposed the perspectives of artists and activists, scientists and organisations to examine the impact of sea level rise on the lives of citizens. It sought to change perceptions of climate and ecological crises by offering a range of spatial interventions for gallery visitors to navigate, through observational imagery, audio-visual testimony, a towering, tactile, three-dimensional object, and a relevant, interactive “Serious” game. The exhibition explored how individual and collective voices can help to illuminate structures of policy and decision-making and give voice to the non-human entities that exist and suffer because of destructive human activity. This multi-disciplinary approach supported connection-building across human and non-human communities to imagine, engage, and inform the public.

4. Conclusion

Exhibitors presented visualisations that imaginatively explored aspects of the climate and other emergencies. Video, photography, sculpture, and an online, interactive Serious Game presented the impacts of decision-making that result in eroded favourite beaches, ruined shellfish colonies, and destroyed habitats such as that of the Kororā, the Little Blue Penguin. The interrelated artworks enabled visitors to reflect on and process different experiences of loss that are expected to be experienced in the future: the loss of favourite beaches, loss of homes and lifestyles, loss of species, loss of community.

Blue Radius created a platform for an innovative and experimental exchange of views where culture, community and science could meet in a non-hierarchical dialogue. The novelty of this approach lay in the explorative nature of where the process could lead. The goal was to develop imaginative strategies that would help to improve understanding, increase levels of engagement and help to share experiences of climate change induced sea level rise and other issues affecting marine ecology, in the hope that those present might be willing to consider the impact our behaviours and attitudes are having on nature.

Thus, Blue Radius contributed to knowledge exchange across art, sustainability education, ecology, and environmental disciplines. It connected with a broad cross section of citizens who might be struggling to focus their efforts in a world of biodiversity loss and climatic change, such as children and young people, teachers, local communities, indigenous communities, artists, politicians, local authorities, business owners, tourists, new immigrants, and community organisations. Further to these associations, this exhibition provided opportunities to extend the reach of artistic production by building awareness, decision-making, education, and empowerment to encourage local communities to undertake pro-environmental action.

To conclude, Blue Radius provided a public platform for a diverse group of artists, activists, scientists, and organisations whose work imaginatively explored the phenomena of climate change induced sea level rise. The exhibition introduced creative, ecological, and science-based methods to develop awareness of human interdependence with nature. It stimulated pro-environmental consciousness by promoting more sustainable ways of living. It gave voice to imaginative and moral states of mind towards nature. It developed new collaborations that helped to unlock new forms of inquiry. It explored how individual and collective voices can help to illuminate structures of policy and decision-making and give voice to the non-human entities that exist and suffer because of destructive human activity. This multi-disciplinary approach supported connection-building across human and non-human communities to engage and inform the public.