Environmental Graphiti
Learn more about the artist’s process of transforming important climate science data into abstract visual art—and why the Earth Commons is displaying it across campus.
Watch the VideoECo ArtWalk
The ECo Artwalk is an art installation throughout the Georgetown campus featuring artwork that furthers the dialogue around environmental issues and the call to action to address them.
Environmental Graphiti: The Art and Science of Climate Change
Environmental Graphiti—The Art of Climate Change by ECo Artwalk featured artist Alisa Singer uses abstract images to illustrate the science behind the critical changes impacting our planet. The series consists of digital paintings, each derived from a chart, graph, map, word, or number relating to key facts or data about climate change. The art is designed to function as a gateway to the science, focusing interest and awareness on the various factors that have contributed to our warming planet over the last two hundred years.
Singer uses graphic scientific data as the “blueprint” for each painting in the collection, dramatizing the source material with layered, chaotic digital painting techniques. The result is a vibrant, dynamic display which conveys the urgency of the source data with an emotional and human tone. Intentionally vivid and colorful, the art draws viewers in for a closer look, at which point they discover the art is not abstract after all. Engaged in the process of identifying the source data embedded in the art, viewers find themselves learning more about the science.
The series focuses on the topics that demonstrate some of the most dramatic impacts of climate change across the globe, promising ideas and strategies to respond to the many challenges of climate change, and the need to take decisive action in the near future to avoid catastrophic impacts.
“We’re bringing interdisciplinary experiences like the Environmental Graphiti series to campus to infuse the environment and sustainability thinking into everything we do at Georgetown.”
Earth commons director Peter p. marra, Ph.D.
“3 Ways Hoyas Are Celebrating Earth Day Through the Arts”
In addition to being featured throughout the Georgetown campus, Environmental Graphiti has been extensively exhibited in the US and other parts of the world. It was also featured on the cover of several recent major reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Thanks to an installation by the Earth Commons—Georgetown’s Institute for Environment & Sustainability—Georgetown joins dozens of universities and museums in collecting and displaying the series, raising the call for further artistic interpretation of global change and inspiring action to address it.
To see more art and learn more about the project, visit www.environmentalgraphiti.org