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The goal of this study was to investigate whether activist art can have a stimulating psychological effect on its spectators. This question is examined in art specifically related to climate change. With the aim of inspiring public engagement and communicating environmental issues to spark a climate change movement, ArtCOP21 is a global festival that took place simultaneously to the United Nations climate change negotiations (Conference of the Parties [COP21]) 2015 in Paris. Eight hundred seventy-four spectators responded to a questionnaire on their perception of 37 selected artworks. In an explorative study using cluster analysis, characteristics of the artworks were connected with emotional and cognitive audience responses. The analysis of the artworks assigned them to four clusters: "the comforting utopia," "the challenging dystopia," "the mediocre mythology," and "the awesome solution." As suggested by the name, the "awesome solution" was the cluster of artworks that caused the highest emotional and cognitive activation. Artists and environmental campaigners can use the commonalities of the artworks in this cluster in their own creative work and contribute to our understanding of the impact of activist art.

Environmentally-themed art is increasingly addressed in research as a means to raise awareness for environmental problems and motivate pro-environmental behavior. However, as researchers begin to systematically study environmental art, influencing factors must be addressed-for example, the effect of presenting contextualizing information. In the present study, 123 participants saw an environmental artwork with or without contextualizing information in a between-subjects design and rated the artwork on various variables regarding its aesthetic value and pro-environmental impact. Additionally, eye movement was recorded using mobile eye tracking glasses to gain insight into the visual processing of the artwork. The results showed that information presentation increased personal meaning, which was in turn associated with increased liking, interest and emotional responses. The average duration of fixations was shorter for participants in the information group, indicating easier processing possibly due to the guidance of the provided information. However, information had no effects on participants' pro-environmental intentions and behavior. Taken together, the results strongly suggest that both researchers and practitioners should be taking the effect of contextualizing information into account when exhibiting environmental art, as it can impact a variety of relevant factors.

This paper suggests and tests a psychological model of environmental art perception and subsequent support for climate change policies. The model is based on findings from art perception and environmental psychology, which indicate that the response of the viewer to the artwork is (1) first an emotional reaction, which can be positive and/or negative. The emotional activation leads to (2) evaluation of the perceived quality of the artwork. This forms the first impression of the artwork the viewer gets, which then triggers (3) reflections on the artwork that are finally related to support for climate policies. The model test uses data collected at the ArtCOP21 that accompanied the 21st UN climate summit in Paris. At 37 connected events, the research team collected 883 audience responses with a brief quantitative paper-pencil questionnaire. The data were analyzed using a multilevel-structural equation modeling approach. Results support the suggested theoretical model. Moreover, the effect of reflections on the artwork on support for climate policies is moderated by environmental attitudes, meaning the lower the environmental attitudes, the higher the effect of reflections on policy support. Finally, artwork features like color, size, displaying something personal, etc., could be identified that had a significant relation to differences on the artwork level regarding the first impression of the artwork and the reflections elicited. The study shows that being confronted with climate change-related artwork relates at least in the short run to increased climate policy support, which is mostly channeled through an emotional activation with following cognitive processing. Features of the artwork relate to how strongly and which emotions are activated.

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