Communicating Climate Change: Reactions to Adapt and Survive Exhibition and Visitors’ Thoughts About Climate Change in the Pacific Islands Region

Abstract

This paper examines the content and responses to an art installation addressing climate change in the Pacific, collected at the Adapt and Survive exhibition held at the University of the South Pacific Oceania Centre Gallery in 2014. The artist statement on the exhibition emphasised that it sought to explore the causes and effects of climate change, and to raise awareness of its wider impacts for cultural loss and societal change. As well as conducting a series of interviews with the artist, visitors to the exhibition were invited to complete a short survey concerning their thoughts about climate change and reactions to the exhibition, both before and after they viewed the artworks. The artist's perspectives emphasised the significance of climate change for the region, in the context of traditional responses to environmental problems. The audience survey results suggest that there were high levels of agreement among visitors that the place where they live is being affected by climate change. While emphasising both negative and positive emotional reactions to the artworks, people for the most part expressed confidence and hope that climate change can be effectively addressed, although there was uncertainty on whether or not Pacific islands had the resources to do so. Our study is limited by the small sample size available, but points to directions for future research in this underdeveloped field.

Climate-driven losses to knowledge systems and cultural heritage: A literature review exploring the impacts on Indigenous and local cultures

“…Barbec and Chilton (2015) stated: ‘The objects of tangible heritage have meaning only because of the intangible values societies place on them, and intangible heritage almost always has an expression in tangible products or contexts’ (p. 268). Whether agricultural landscapes in the USA (Mitchell and Barret, 2015), historical buildings (Daly, 2019), or art installations composed of material objects to capture the subjective impact of climate change on Pacific Islanders (Hemstock and Capstick, 2019), tangible heritage is linked to the intangible values these objects hold. The loss of burial sites due to sea-level rise in Kosrae, Micronesia (Monnereau and Abraham, 2013) is a pertinent example of the profound grief that can be experienced by the loss of tangible heritage.…”