Weinberg/Newton Gallery (688 N. Milwaukee Ave.), a non-commercial gallery dedicated to promoting social justice causes, will partner with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to present Human/Nature. Addressing the urgent issue of climate change, Human/Nature will feature new work by artists Laura Ball, Stas Bartnikas, Donovan Quintero, Obvious, Karen Reimer, Matthew Ritchie and Regan Rosburg along with video interviews from climate scientists and experts, offering actionable ideas on ways to contribute to a sustainable future. Human/Nature is guest curated by Cyndi Conn, and will run from Jan. 14 to March 19, 2022.
Donovan Quintero, Atomic Project 81
“Humanity is at a critical crossroads – it is widely acknowledged that we must take immediate action or our planet will face irreversible climate catastrophe,” said Human/Nature Guest Curator Cyndi Conn, founder and president of LaunchProjects LLC and board member of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “Human/Nature is an art exhibition combining visual imagery and scientific interviews to explore our paths forward. What will the world look like if we do not reverse our current path? Alternatively, could the future look like if we take action now?”
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is well known for its iconic Doomsday Clock – which presents a metaphor, a warning and reminder of the perils humans must address to survive on the planet. Created in 1947, the Doomsday Clock originally addressed nuclear weapons, which at the time posed the greatest danger to humanity. In 1978, the Bulletin sounded a prescient alarm about climate change with the article Is Mankind Warming the Earth? and in 2007, recognizing the urgency of the peril our world faces due to climate change, added it as a key factor in setting the clock. The Doomsday Clock will next be updated on January 20, 2022.
“By working together with leading contemporary artists, designers, and creative communicators, the Bulletin seeks to broaden the conversation, generating innovative ways of framing crucial issues around peace and security,” says Rachel Bronson, President and CEO of the Atomic Scientists. “In recognition of the 75th anniversary of the Doomsday Clock and our commitment to engaging the public around the urgency of climate change, the Bulletin is delighted to partner with Weinberg/Newton Gallery for Human/Nature, an innovative three-month exhibit and programming on climate change.”
Human/Nature is aimed to help visitors understand their agency in addressing climate change, locally, nationally, and internationally to motivate audiences to be engaged, involved, and determined to help turn back the hand of the Doomsday Clock.
Featured Works
When the Doomsday Clock’s 75th anniversary, the artists featured in Human/Nature conceptualize the immediate and future environmental impact of climate change through a variety of media and visual tactics, ranging from photography, digital projections, multi-media installations and AI-generated imagery to textiles and watercolor paintings.
In a collaborative multi-media installation by French collective Obvious and Russian photographer Stas Bartnikas, the Doomsday Clock is reimagined in visual form by compiling countless images taken by Bartnikas during his travels to remote locations on earth and combining them with an AI-generated background featuring the most recognizable elements of the clock. Obvious and Bartnikas’s take on the Doomsday Clock offers a new way to conceptualize the greatest challenges humanity faces and the urgency in solving them.
New York-based artist Matthew Ritchie’s original work on paper and vinyl wall installation translate the premise of the Doomsday Clock into a “Life Clock.” Ritchie’s piece serves as a way for audiences to collectively imagine a positive future—one based on the cumulative effects of knowable and actionable climate solutions and policies.
In the photographic work of Donovan Quintero, a member of the Navajo Nation, former U.S. Navy SEAL and a photojournalist for the Navajo Times, the devastating effects of extreme drought, wildfires, mining spills and economic inequality that continue to plague his native homeland are poignantly captured.
Denver-based interdisciplinary artist Regan Rosburg’s site-specific installation Monument both literally and figuratively addresses humanity’s position in the long arc of time on this planet. In Rosburg’s installation, man-made material such as plastic—which can go thousands of years without disintegrating, is juxtaposed with moss—an organism which has withstood 350 million years of earth’s history. Monument offers some optimism by showing viewers that clues to solving the global climate crisis may lie with ancient species still around today.
Chicago-based Karen Reimer’s colorful, seemingly abstract quilts and embroidered textile pieces reference data visualizations and scientific graphs plotting heat waves, droughts and the long-lasting effects of other environmental disasters. Using found textiles and fabrics, Reimer’s works are the result of a repeated process of patching together disparate elements, dyeing, redyeing, tearing, and resewing—perhaps a meditation on the notion of reuse.
While San-Diego based artist Laura Ball’s intricate watercolor paintings depicting entangled creatures may seem whimsical and lighthearted at first, they depict brief moments of constriction, ensnarement, death, and decay, reminding the viewer that human beings are still members of the animal kingdom, and like any living being, their existence and actions (or inactions) have impactful consequences on the rest of the natural world. The primal, natural world is an interconnected whole more valuable than the sum of its parts. Ball’s work highlights the tensions and recurring failures in humanity’s stewardship of nature.
About the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
The Bulletin equips the public, policymakers, and scientists with the information needed to reduce man-made threats to our existence. The Bulletin is a media organization, posting free articles on its website and publishing a premium digital magazine. In addition, the Bulletin’s website, iconic Doomsday Clock, and regular events help advance actionable ideas at a time when technology is outpacing our ability to control it. The Bulletin focuses on three main areas: nuclear risk, climate change, and disruptive technologies. What connects these topics is a driving belief that because humans created them, we can control them.
About Guest Curator Cyndi Conn
Cyndi Conn is the Founder and President of LaunchProjects LLC, a creative consulting firm that engages and inspires organizations, influencers, and leaders. Conn serves on the Governing Board of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and on advisory boards of The Black Mountain Institute, the National Parks Arts Foundation, the N Square Innovators Network, and is a member of the International Women’s Forum. She was previously the Executive Director of Creative Santa Fe, a non-profit dedicated to leveraging collaboration and the power of the arts to reframe critical issues and drive positive change, and prior to that was the Visual Arts Director and Curator of the Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe. She holds a Master’s in Curatorial Studies and Arts Administration from Skidmore College, a BA in Latin American studies from Tulane University and studied at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.
About Weinberg/Newton Gallery
Weinberg/Newton Gallery is a non-commercial gallery with a mission to collaborate with nonprofit organizations and artists to educate and engage the public on social justice issues. Through artwork and programming, the gallery provides a vital space for open discourse on critical contemporary issues facing our communities. Connecting artists with social justice organizations, we work to drive change and cultivate a culture of consciousness.
History of Weinberg/Newton Gallery
In 2016, David Weinberg Photography became Weinberg/Newton Gallery. The change reflected the values of The Weinberg/Newton Gallery Family Foundation, which has been led jointly by David Weinberg and Jerry Newton since 2009.