“Climate in Crisis: Environmental Change in the Indigenous Americas” Exhibition
Brooklyn Museum
[Image: Eskimo artist. Engraved Whale Tooth, late 19th century. Sperm whale tooth, black ash or graphite, oil, 6 1/2 × 3 × 2 in. Brooklyn Museum; Gift of Robert B. Woodward, 20.895. Creative Commons-BY. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)]
This event has ended.
Climate in Crisis: Environmental Change in the Indigenous Americas explores the various complex worldviews of Indigenous peoples and the effects of climate change on their communities and the planet. For millennia, different Indigenous communities throughout the Americas have maintained profound relationships with the natural world. The European conquest and colonization of the Americas beginning in the sixteenth century introduced ways of using and exploiting natural resources that clashed with Indigenous belief systems. This fundamental difference in worldviews-one that sees humans and their surroundings as interrelated, the other that centers human needs at the expense of the environment-has resulted in centuries of unprecedented climate change and threats to Indigenous homelands, ways of life, and survival.
Drawing upon the strength of the Museum’s Arts of the Americas collection, the exhibition features more than sixty works spanning 2,800 years, from cultures across North, Central, and South America. Central to this display is the concept of environmental colonialism, which considers the cumulative environmental impact of land seizure, overuse of natural resources, and development projects on Indigenous peoples’ land over the last 500 years. Climate in Crisis follows the effects of wildfires, droughts, glacial melt, overexploitation of resources, displacement of native peoples, and extreme violence waged against Indigenous communities and activists by corporate profiteers.
In addition, the exhibition incorporates voices of contemporary Indigenous activists to underscore the work being done today to counter the climate crisis and protect the planet.
Climate in Crisis: Environmental Change in the Indigenous Americas is curated by Nancy Rosoff, Andrew W. Mellon Senior Curator, Arts of the Americas, with Joseph Shaikewitz and Shea Spiller, Curatorial Assistants, Arts of the Americas and Europe.
Media
Schedule
from February 14, 2020 to November 15, 2020