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Text: Anais Reyes<\/strong> It is a rainy afternoon in Washington Square Park, New York City, and a teenage girl has suddenly burst into tears.<\/p>\n She is watching a public performance entitled Low Relief for High Water<\/em>, by artist Gabriela Salazar, happening in the plaza. Salazar used water-soluble paper to create casts of the windows in her childhood home\u2014a Manhattan apartment that she recently moved back into after the birth of her own daughter.\u00a0 The artwork was commissioned by the Climate Museum, and the vulnerability of the paper sculpture to water is a metaphor for the vulnerability of New York City, and of all of our homes, to sea level rise. Through the rain, Salazar is cutting apart the sculpture and giving\u00a0each piece to viewers and passersby, asking them to protect her home as if it were their own\u2014because it is.<\/p>\n As the girl is overcome with emotion, a volunteer asks if everything is okay. The girl, standing with her mother, responds, \u201cI\u2019m not from here. I was just visiting a college. I\u2019ve been torn about whether to major in art or environmental studies. I love art, but I\u2019m also really scared about climate change. And I never felt that anyone else cared about them both the way that I do\u2014until now.\u201d<\/p>\n A \u201cFALSE SOCIAL REALITY\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n In the United States, people often feel that no one cares about climate change.<\/p>\n In truth, the majority of Americans care. A recent survey by Yale University and George Mason University found that 64% of Americans are worried about climate change[1]<\/sup><\/a> (about the same as the 66% of Finnish adults who are worried[2]<\/sup><\/a>). However, a 2022 study found that Americans underestimate concern about climate change and support for major climate policies by nearly half. The misperception is so strong that the researchers termed it a \u201cfalse social reality.\u201d[3]<\/sup><\/a> Despite the overwhelming worry, 62% of Americans rarely or never talk about climate change.[4]<\/sup><\/a> This in effect creates a \u201cspiral of silence\u201d\u2014people feel that they cannot talk about the climate crisis because no one else is talking about it\u2014leading to a feedback loop of isolation, misunderstanding, and inaction.[5]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n If this overwhelming silence is shutting us down and preventing us from acting on climate change, how can we break the cycle?<\/p>\n ART AS A CATALYST<\/strong><\/p>\n The Climate Museum, the first museum in the United States dedicated to climate change, uses arts and culture as tools to break the spiral of silence. Through interdisciplinary exhibitions and events, the Museum aims to spark dialogue, bring people together, and build momentum for the climate movement. Each program at the Climate Museum ties together art, learning, and action to move people from\u00a0 worry and isolation to agency and empowerment. The Museum highlights climate change as a systemic and social issue that must be addressed through civic and collective action, and each program guides visitors on different ways they can get involved.<\/p>\n ART AS CARE<\/strong><\/p>\n Gabriela Salazar\u2019s Low Relief for High Water<\/em> was a one-day interactive installation that used the visual language of architecture\u2014a familiar structure from within a home\u2014to explore the choice and act of protection. In taking a piece of the water-soluble artwork, the participant could choose to care for, neglect, or even destroy it\u2014a parallel for the choices we make (whether actively or passively) to protect our shared home, planet Earth, from rising seas. Originally organized to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in April 2020, the event was postponed until October 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As with all Climate Museum programs, the event also featured civic and social engagement opportunities: viewers could sign postcards to their elected representatives asking them to support more climate policies; talk with a climate psychologist equipped to answer questions about climate anxiety; or take a Polaroid picture and write a note of reflection about the performance, which was then displayed with the photos and reflections of other participants. On the day of the performance\u2014the culmination of a two year long project\u2014the weather turned, and the unanticipated humidity, rain, and wind caused the water-soluble paper sculptures to buckle and collapse. Museum staff and volunteers jumped in to protect the artwork, picking it up off the ground and supporting it upright. However, the damage was already done. The pieces had lost their structural integrity. What had been planned as a choreographed performance by the artist and three assistants became an all-hands-on-deck crisis.<\/p>\n As the wind and rain continued through the afternoon, supporters cycled in and out to hold up the artwork as Salazar cut it apart, gave the pieces to the audience, and persisted with the performance. Some parts of the sculpture became too water-logged and were unsalvageable, but most of the sculpture was able to be saved and given to participants. Although the day did not go according to plan, the choice of the supporters to step up during an emergency, and the act of selfless endurance to protect something we all cared about from the storm\u2014to literally protect Salazar\u2019s home\u2014added a valuable layer of meaning to the artwork.<\/p>\n EXHIBITIONS AS CARE<\/strong><\/p>\n For each action commitment taken, visitors could place a corresponding sticker on a nearby wall. Inspired by Yayoi Kusama\u2019s Obliteration Room<\/em>, this sticker wall acted as a visual representation of the collective\u2014of everyone else who cares about climate change, who stood where you stood in this very gallery, and who chose to commit to action. Many people signed their names, included the date, and wrote a message\u2014a way to leave their mark on the exhibition. After the seven-month run of the show, the wall was covered with stickers. Some even overflowed onto adjacent walls. This was our second iteration of the sticker wall, and it continues to be an interactive exhibit that we return to because of its effectiveness. It captures the importance of seeing everyone else who cares about this issue, the strength of our actions when combined with the actions of others, and our potential as a collective for transformational change. Through these sticker walls we are able to create a sense of direction, connection, and motivation.<\/p>\n CARE AND HOPE IN THE CLIMATE CRISIS<\/strong><\/p>\n In the Climate Museum\u2019s most recent exhibition, The End of Fossil Fuel<\/em>, one wall read in massive letters, \u201cWe cannot afford the luxury of either hope or despair,\u201d\u2014a quote from a friend of the Museum, Olatunde Johnson. It was a statement on the need for urgent and committed action, and the pitfalls of allowing either hope or despair to make us passive.<\/p>\n Care, like hope, cannot flourish in passivity nor in isolation. To care is to act, and to act is to care. Care involves coming together with others to put in the work. If you care about something, especially in times of crisis, you do not wait around hoping for things to get better on their own. You run to hold up that collapsing sculpture, knowing full well that the rain might drench you in the process, but also knowing that you will not be doing it alone. Our understanding of care must transform from passive to active and from individual to collective.<\/p>\n A study conducted by George Mason University on The End of Fossil Fuel<\/em> found that after viewing the exhibition, visitors felt more confident and more determined to talk about climate[6]<\/sup><\/a>\u2014an action that experts say is critical to building a better future.[7]<\/sup><\/a> Artists and cultural institutions have the power to help those who are worried but silent turn the care they feel into care they do. Now more than ever is a critical time to put that power to good use.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/sup><\/a> https:\/\/climatecommunication.yale.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/climate-change-american-mind-beliefs-attitudes-fall-2024.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n [2]<\/sup><\/a> https:\/\/climatecommunication.yale.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/international-public-opinion-climate-change-2023.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n [3]<\/sup><\/a> https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC9399177\/<\/a><\/p>\n [4]<\/sup><\/a> https:\/\/climatecommunication.yale.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/climate-change-american-mind-beliefs-attitudes-fall-2024.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n [5]<\/sup><\/a> https:\/\/climatecommunication.yale.edu\/publications\/climate-spiral-silence-america\/<\/a><\/p>\n [6]<\/sup><\/a> https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/climate\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pclm.0000518<\/a><\/p>\n [7]<\/sup><\/a> https:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/katharine_hayhoe_the_most_important_thing_you_can_do_to_fight_climate_change_talk_about_it<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Text: Anais Reyes Photos: Sari Goodfriend It is a rainy afternoon in Washington Square Park, New York City, and a teenage girl has suddenly burst into tears. She is watching a public performance entitled Low Relief for High Water, by artist Gabriela Salazar, happening in the plaza. Salazar used water-soluble paper to create casts of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":8743,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-partir-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituutit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituutit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituutit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituutit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituutit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8761"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/instituutit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8764,"href":"https:\/\/instituutit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8761\/revisions\/8764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituutit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituutit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituutit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituutit.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nPhotos: Sari Goodfriend<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/instituutit.fi\/hallinta\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/20221008_PopUpPublicOpening_SariGoodfriendHiRes169-450x300.jpg\")
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Three years after Salazar\u2019s performance, the Acts of Care Symposium\u2014a pARTir project organized by Vapaa Collective\u2014explored connections between art, architecture, and care under the threat of sea level rise. One of the questions presented to the symposium speakers asked us to reflect on the evolving definitions of care in response to the climate crisis. What does care actually mean in practice? How can it scale, from the personal to the global level? Here I will discuss some key moments from the Climate Museum\u2019s history that explore these questions.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/instituutit.fi\/hallinta\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2021-10-10-CM_Salazar_Relief_SG73089-450x300.jpg\")
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In 2023, the Climate Museum presented an exhibition that showcased an artwork entitled Someday, all this<\/em> by David Opdyke. A scene created out of 400 hand-altered vintage postcards told a story about sea level rise, destruction, and displacement with a touch of absurdity and humor. As part of this exhibition, we created an \u201caction center\u201d where people could commit to taking different civic and collective actions. The action options included contacting elected representatives, attending marches, joining local environmental groups, voting for politicians that support climate policy, talking about climate, and more.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/instituutit.fi\/hallinta\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2021-10-10-CM_Salazar_Relief_SG71902-450x300.jpg\")