Garden for a Changing Climate: A Phenologic Clock
The Garden for a Changing Climate: A Phenological Clock collaborators propose a 2018 eight-month presentation of a case-study large scale public art project as the basis through which to examine both the expansion and deepening of an arts-based interdisciplinary undergraduate curriculum and the possibilities for audience co-construction of effective interpretive and educational methods for behavioral change.
As a public artwork that makes the shift in ecozones manifest in a large-scale mobile garden, the project addresses the challenge in communicating the climate crisis—that the problem is distant, complex, and uncertain—by making it tangible and perceptible.
This collaboration fuses interdisciplinarity, formal and informal education, museum commissioning and programming, and the creation of a new artwork.
Garden for a Changing Climate: A Phenological Clock uses a central effect of climate change to demonstrate how interdisciplinarity across art, science, education, and social science—embedded in every aspect of the project, from the conception of artwork to the museological interpretation of that work to the evaluation of the interpretive strategies—can model pedagogy in an arts-based interdisciplinary curriculum and create effective education for undergraduates about the changing climate, its impact on their lives, and how they can join mitigation efforts.
Collaborators are
Hannah Higgins, Professor of Art History, University of Illinois at Chicago;
Noah Feinstein, Associate Professor, Curriculum & Instruction and Community & Environmental Sociology, School of Education, University of Wisconsin–Madison;
Lorelei Stewart, Director, Gallery 400 and Lecturer, Museum and Exhibition Studies, School of Art & Art History, University of Illinois at Chicago;
Robyn Mericle, PhD student, Art History, University of Illinois at Chicago;
Corinna West, PhD student, University of Wisconsin–Madison; a not yet named Museum and Exhibition Studies MA student, University of Illinois at Chicago; and Chicago-based artist Jenny Kendler.
