The ZERO1 American Arts Incubator exhibition Climate Kit: Field Tools of the Anthropocene opens this weekend at the Otago Museum, with a sneak preview offered from 4pm on Friday 5 August.
The exhibition, displayed in the Museum’s Atrium, is the culmination of a month long Dunedin-based residence by international artists and academics Sara Dean and Beth Ferguson, in partnership with ZERO1 American Arts Incubator, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and the U.S. Embassy in Wellington.
During their time at the Otago Museum, Dean and Ferguson have run a series of workshops, field experiments and research with local participants, exploring climate research on the local environment. The exhibition will feature their own work and the results of four projects exploring global climate research, geography and the night skies of the Otago Peninsula. These were developed by community groups including staff and students from Tahuna Normal Intermediate School, the University of Otago and the Otago Polytechnic.
The exhibition will be open free to the public from Saturday 6 August to Tuesday 16 August in the Museum’s Atrium Level 2. The project team extends an invitation to the wider community to join them for a preview of the displays and an opportunity to talk to the artists behind the pieces from 4pm–5pm this Friday.
Caroline Cook, Otago Museum Director, Marketing and Development is thrilled that the Museum has been able to host the artists-in-residence over the past month and is looking forward to sharing with visitors the results of Dean’s and Ferguson’s work.
“We are proud to be the New Zealand partner on this cultural incubator project, offering a forum for climate change discussions and a hub to explore what a tool kit to deal with this global issue might look like,” says Cook.
Beth Ferguson, Assistant Professor of Industrial Design at The University of California, Davis is equally excited to cut the ribbon on the Climate Kit exhibit.
“It has been a privilege to mentor the four community groups over the last month through the series of Climate Kit events and activities,” says Ferguson.
“We are extremely excited to showcase the work developed by these talented groups in the exhibit, and we encourage as many people as possible to join us for the preview event to celebrate what these artists have achieved.”
In conjunction with the opening of the exhibition, a panel of four local climate experts will be running a seminar discussing the unique and changing environment of the area through their research findings from 3pm Saturday 6 August in the Museum’s Barclay Theatre.