Dr. José Castro-Sotomayor, Alyssa Banaszkiewicz, Eddy Borsak, Jason Collier, Daniel Gerety, Jenowa Larson, & Julia Mcintosh
This project is part of the Thinking Together Project, which connects students in Art History and Communication courses to “think together” about environmental issues. Moving beyond abstract notions of global climate crises, course discussions consider local and immediate issues. Our focus of investigation is creative climate action by artists and concerned citizens alike. Water pollution and food scarcity are two major themes that students chose for their final signature assignments. Students are encouraged to draw on their own strengths and skills as they develop their own interventions on the environmental issues they are concerned about. Key components in student’s climate action efforts are creativity, dialogue, activism, and community engagement. Students are working to clean water and transform their documentation and the debris they collect into works of art. Another group of students will host interventions on campus to address food quality and scarcity. For this project, students think together about a range of issues from diverse perspectives as they learn to be engaged citizens.