In December 2021, following the intense COP26 climate negotiations in Glasgow, CLIMARTE launched a public call out for A0 poster size artworks to address the causes and solutions to the climate crisis.

The selected 10 final works for month-long display around the City of Melbourne will be launched at the Poster Project III: Why a Call to Art? public Forum on the 26th of February.  See the POSTERS here >

With an introduction by City of Melbourne Councillor Rohan Leppert, this public facing Forum discussed the unique capacities of artists to speak truth to power. It explored the importance of creative, factually informed work in addressing the Climate Emergency and associated critical social issues. Partnering with The Sustainable Living Festival it took place at The Capitol, 113 Swanston St, Melbourne on 26 February 2022.

Led by Dr. Lara Stevens, Forum speakers included Professor Brian Martin, Professor Patricia Piccinini and Dr. Jen Rae. This afforded an opportunity to hear leaders in creative communications discuss their research, views on the power of Art to change ideas, their own practice and the launch of the 2022 CLIMARTE Poster Project III.

More about the speakers:
Professor Brian Martin is the Monash University’s Art, Design and Architecture faculty’s inaugural Associate Dean, Indigenous. Brian is a descendant of Muruwari, Bundjalung and Kamilaroi peoples. Brian is represented by William Mora Galleries. He has been a practicing artist for twenty-seven years and has exhibited both nationally and internationally specifically in the media of painting and drawing. His research and practice focuses on refiguring Australian art and culture from an Indigenous ideological perspective based on a reciprocal relationship to “Country”.

Professor Patricia Piccinini is an Australian artist who works in a variety of media, including painting, video, sound, installation, digital prints, and sculpture. Piccinini has spent close to three decades exploring humanity’s relationship to technology and the environment. Her work has been exhibited at major Australian and international institutions and events including the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; and the Vancouver and Venice biennales. Her ‘A Miracle Constantly Repeated’ is currently showing in the mysterious rooms of the Flinders St Station through RISING 

Dr Jen Rae is a Narrm (Melbourne)-based artist-researcher, facilitator and educator of Canadian Red River Métis-Scottish descent from Treaty 6 Territory. Her practice-led research expertise is in the discursive field of contemporary environmental art and environmental communication. It is centered around cultural responses to climate change/everything change – specifically the role of artists and creative inquiry.