ArtCOP21. Art and Ecology at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change

One hundred and fifty cultural events were programmed around the 21st United Nations Conference on Climate Change, held in Paris between November 30 and December 11, 2015, involving more than 100 institutions and twenty international artists, several hailing from Latin America. The main goal of the Conference was to bring together world leaders in order to discuss and reach agreements for the solution of climate change. Its nature was political and scientific, but cultural expressions were programmed as a way of prompting a different approach to the issues. Thus, a large-scale, cross-disciplinary artistic event was planned, with the objective of engaging environmental concerns from the standpoint of culture and creativity. Artists based in Paris and in 54 countries were invited to participate with interventions in different disciplines, such as the visual arts, drama, literature, and more, to be presented in art exhibits, concerts, literary readings, performances, installations, screenings, lectures, discussions, workshops and family events, all under the slogan "Climate is culture". The intention was to join culture-based efforts against climate change. Several works by Latin American artists were among the highlights in the more than 180 public-art installations featured in the event. The participants included Futuro Caliente (Peru), with its installative action Foro Público, performed in a street in Lima in 2014 and photographed by Peter Seinfeld; Vik Muniz (Brazil); Lucy + Jorge Orta from Argentina, with an interactive installation at the Grand Palais; Oscar Lloveras (Argentina), with Tangibles Surfaces, a monumental installation across from the Musée des Arts et Métiers; Carlos Motani (Argentina), with Aqua Planetae, an installation of water samples from different parts of the world, donated by volunteer participants in the project. In Quintana Roo, Mexico, artists, scientists, and children participated in an artistic event that sought to rebuild a coral reef using colorful papier mâché sculptures. The Maracaibo Botánico collective (Venezuela) presented two parallel workshops: one at the Place Jussieu, in Paris, near the Jardin des Plantes, and another one at the Maracaibo Botanical Gardens, in the Venezuelan state of Zulia, established in 1983 by the Brazilian naturalist Roberto Burle Marx and the Venezuelan botanist Leandro Aristeguieta as a garden-school for the preservation of tropical forests. At both sites, Maracaibo Botánico presented a workshop titled Paisaje urbano botánico efímero ("Ephemeral Urban Botanical Landscape"), with performances and activities supporting botanical and landscape education. Rafael De Pool (Venezuela) presented a monumental installation titled Réchauffement. It was curated by Elisa Rodríguez and installed on December 10th at the UNESCO Gardens, where works by such renowned artists as Chillida, Moore, Calder, among others, can be seen. De Pool's work featured thirteen frozen, garbage-filled letters spelling the word Réchauffement ("Warming"); each later was made of water from one of the world's eleven most polluted rivers. This powerful metaphor prompted urgent reflections about the landscape and its degradation.