Actions for the Earth: Art, Care & Ecology

On view Aug. 9-Dec. 8, 2024

The Nerman Museum has released its calendar of events for Actions for the Earth: Art, Care & Ecology. Learn more about our activities.

Actions for the Earth: Art, Care & Ecology is a traveling exhibition that considers how artistic practices use kinship, healing, and restorative intervention to foster a deeper consciousness of our interconnectedness with the earth.

This exhibition turns to a group of interdisciplinary artists to engage with the overlapping, worldwide crises of our time. Ongoing climate change, entrenched social inequity, and renewed concerns over public health have all underscored the need for approaches that take on global responsibilities while caring for our local environment. For decades, artists have sought to find new antidotes to oppressive structures of power and promote greater understanding of the many ways that nature, health, and sustainability are intertwined.

Actions for the Earth presents the work of eighteen intergenerational artists and collectives who place action, instruction, reciprocity, and exchange at the forefront of their practices. By sharing their participatory artistic interventions and healing strategies alongside research in ecology, science, and ancient beliefs, these artists remind us that we are connected within a constellation of living networks, inseparable from the planet and its environments. Artworks on view create space for the honoring of ancestors, foreground the significance of Indigenous knowledges, and engage in speculative imaginings through science fiction and network sciences—organic, digital, and spiritual.

In its curatorial approach, Actions for the Earth acts as a resource for studying our current times. The works on view not only emphasize themes of learning, care, and intimacy, but offer concrete knowledge by inviting the public to participate in actions such as instruction-based meditation and deep listening activities. The life of these works, and the interventions they propose, extends far beyond the scope of the exhibition to engage people in their personal contexts.

Artists: Ackroyd and Harvey, Lhola Amira, Arahmaiani, Sayan Chanda, Hylozoic/Desires (Himali Singh Soin & David Soin Tappeser), lololol, Ana Mendieta, Zarina Muhammad, Patrina Mununggurr, Pauline Oliveros, Yoko Ono, Tabita Rezaire, Eric-Paul Riege, Cecilia Vicuña, Katie West, and Zheng Bo

ICI logoActions for the Earth: Art, Care & Ecology is a traveling exhibition curated by Sharmila Wood and produced by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York. Lead funding is provided by the Hartfield Foundation as part of an initiative to support ICI’s commitment to new curatorial voices who will shape the future of the field, and ICI’s Curatorial Intensive alumni as they move through the stages of their career. Actions for the Earth is made possible with the generous support of ICI’s Board of Trustees and International Forum.

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    art works on display for the Actions for the Earth Exhibition at the Nerman Museum a work of art for the Actions for the Earth Exhibition at the Nerman Museum photographs projected on screens for the Actions for the Earth Exhibition at the Nerman Museum a person walks through the Actions for the Earth Exhibition at the Nerman Museum
    a work of art hangs from the gallery ceiling at the Actions for the Earth Exhibition at the Nerman Museum plants grow from an art installation at the Actions for the Earth Exhibition at the Nerman Museum a view of art on display for the Actions for the Earth Exhibition at the Nerman Museum a photograph of a woman who is gardening - displayed on a screen for the Actions for the Earth Exhibition at the Nerman Museum
    Actions for the Earth Exhibition at the Nerman Museum a sculpture installation at the Actions for the Earth Exhibition at the Nerman Museum prints hang in a row on the gallery wall for the Actions for the Earth Exhibition at the Nerman Museum illuminated boxes sit on the floor of the gallery for the Actions for the Earth Exhibition at the Nerman Museum