Art Club: Climate Conscious Art-Making

Enjoy pop-up performances by violinist Eunice Kim at 6, 6:30, and 7 pm.

With Shea Maze, participants will work together to create an assemblage using locally sourced natural materials. Maze will provide a variety of foraged items from sources ranging from the Mississippi River area to his grandmother’s garden. Participants will be able to select a foraged item, modify it if desired, and with the artist’s guidance determine placement on the canvas to create a collaborative work of art.

Vernon Vanderwood invites participants to learn to cast mycelium and make your very own living sculpture. Grow it into durable custom objects or let it fruit mushrooms and dissolve over the course of time. Materials to make a simple mold and the myceliated substrate are provided. Just sculpt, take home to grow, and watch as it transforms. Mycelium is the root-like connective force between mushrooms, trees, and many of the diverse life that exists in and among the dirt of our world. Mycelium’s gift of knitting together itself and communicating with other species also lends itself as an expansive, sustainable art material.

Raquel Santamaria Germani’s activity Squeeze In! invites participants to help repopulate the shrinking intertidal zone by sculpting their own marine organisms from clay. Each creation represents a species struggling to survive as rising seas and humanmade structures compress their habitats, a phenomenon known as shoreline squeeze. Participants are welcome to take their pieces home or to place them in artist-made “vertipools,” which will form a collaborative community artwork celebrating resilience and restoration.

In the Mediatheque, watch a complete screening of Project Drawdown’s four-part series The Drawdown Roadmap: Using Science to Guide Climate Action.

Sustainable Art & Climate Change Reading List

Demos, T. J., Emily Eliza Scott, and Subhankar Banerjee, eds. The Routledge Companion to Contemporary Art, Visual Culture, and Climate Change. Routledge, 2023.

Fowkes, Maja, and Reuben Fowkes. Art and Climate Change. Thames & Hudson, 2022.

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. Scribner, 2024.

Syperek, Pandora, and Sarah Wade, eds. Oceans. Whitechapel Gallery / MIT Press, 2023.

Thomas, Rachel, and Hayward Gallery. Dear Earth: Art and Hope in a Time of Crisis. Hayward Gallery Publishing, 2023.

Weintraub, Linda. What’s Next? Eco Materialism & Contemporary Art. Intellect, 2019.

Wiesenberger, Robert, Risa Puleo, Alena J. Williams, and Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Humane Ecology: Eight Positions. Clark Art Institute, 2023.

Project Drawdown’s The Drawdown® Roadmap: Using Science to Guide Climate Action is a science-based strategy for accelerating climate solutions. The series points to which climate actions governments, businesses, investors, philanthropists, community organizations, and others should prioritize to make the most of our efforts to stop climate change.

Drawdown Explorer is a platform for actionable intelligence on the most effective climate solutions. Building upon thousands of hours of analysis by scientific experts from around the world, the project provides detailed information on the many technologies and practices proven or proposed to effectively reduce greenhouse warming pollution in the atmosphere.

A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, violinist Eunice Kim has been proclaimed “just superb” by the New York Times. Kim made her solo debut at the age of seven with the Korean Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra in Seoul, and she continues to make many solo appearances with orchestras including Philadelphia Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Albany Symphony, and Boulder Symphony. An avid chamber musician, Kim has attended festivals such as Marlboro and Ravinia, and she is currently the violinist of the Steans Piano Trio. She holds a BA from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she led the Curtis Symphony Orchestra as concertmaster and was awarded with the prestigious Milka Violin Artist Prize.

Shea Maze is an interdisciplinary artist and chef who creates biologically inspired sculptures and multisensory experiences that prioritize materials sourced from the natural world. His practice aims to deconstruct, analyze, capture, and honor the complexity of life, while combatting society’s existential distractions and quick thrills fueled by consumerism. Maze considers the use of natural resources as a collaboration with his environment. Melding techniques of woodworking, ceramics, natural dyes, and more, his abstract forms emphasize the materials’ natural beauty and exaggerate nature’s asymmetrical, perfectly imperfect wonders. Maze says he’d like to believe that through using his identity and environment as the catalyst for his work, he’s making art more approachable for communities like his own and helping foster connections to our earth in the process.

Raquel Santamaria Germani graduated from Carleton College in 2025, with a BA in Studio Art and Biology. While at Carleton, she combined her passions by creating illustrations for the biology department and the marine biology lab. Drawing on scientific research and the beauty of the natural world, these experiences fueled her love of environmental art as a way to bring awareness to the impact we have on the world around us. She aims to inspire hope and innovation through her work, inviting viewers to reflect on what we can do to heal natural spaces, rather than dwell on the damage that has already been done.

Gabriella Smith is as much an environmentalist as she is a composer. In her Twin Cities debut, she presents Aquatic Ecology, a major piece performed by contemporary classical sextet yMusic. The 40-minute opus brings to light hidden ecosystems, sampling raw and processed field recordings from sources including California tidepools and Polynesian coral reefs. The evening opens with Smith’s contemplative duo with long-time creative partner and yMusic cellist Gabriel Cabezas, featuring the composer herself on violin, vocals, and electronics. Translating the effects of the climate crisis into sound, Smith makes a moving plea for the planet we call home.

Vernon Vanderwood (they/she) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Minneapolis. Currently, they work across bio art and media-based mediums, exploring the intersectionality of ecological, cyber, and spiritual realms. Their process utilizes grown materials, laser etching, drawing, circuitry, decay, and mending. The artist engages binaries—materially, conceptually, and personally—as a way to examine the expansiveness of bodies and systems. They hold a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and were in residence at St. Paul’s Second Shift Studios, where they curated a group show centered on biomaterials, sustainability, and the transience of bodies. Vanderwood has exhibited a collaborative sculpture made of recycled technology, videos, and circuitry at the Artropolis events at the Walker.

Sustainable Art & Climate Change Reading List:

Demos, T. J., Emily Eliza Scott, and Subhankar Banerjee, eds. 2023. The Routledge Companion to Contemporary Art, Visual Culture, and Climate Change. London: Routledge.

Fowkes, Maja, and Reuben Fowkes. 2022. Art and Climate Change. London: Thames & Hudson.
Kimmerer, Robin Wall. 2024. The Serviceberry : Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. New York: Scribner.

Syperek, Pandora, and Sarah Wade, eds. 2023. Oceans. London, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Whitechapel Gallery ; The MIT Press.

Thomas, Rachel, and Hayward Gallery. 2023. Dear Earth : Art and Hope in a Time of Crisis. London: Hayward Gallery Publishing.

Weintraub, Linda. 2019. What’s next? : Eco Materialism & Contemporary Art. Bristol, UK: Intellect.

Wiesenberger, Robert, Risa Puleo, Alena J. Williams, and Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. 2023. Humane Ecology : Eight Positions. Williamstown, Massachusetts: Clark Art Institute.

Project Drawdown: The Drawdown® Roadmap – Using science to guide climate action. T<a href="http://”>he Drawdown® Roadmap is a science-based strategy for accelerating climate solutions. It points to which climate actions governments, businesses, investors, philanthropists, community organizations, and others should prioritize to make the most of our efforts to stop climate change. By showing how to strategically mobilize solutions across sectors, time, and place, engage the power of co-benefits, and recognize and remove obstacles, the Drawdown Roadmap charts a path to accelerate climate solutions before it’s too late.

Introducing Drawdown Explorer, the ultimate platform for actionable intelligence on the most effective climate solutions. Building upon thousands of hours of analysis by scientific experts from around the world, the Drawdown Explorer provides detailed information on the many technologies and practices proven or proposed to effectively reduce greenhouse warming pollution in the atmosphere.

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