Earlier this week three scientists from the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) set out for the Peruvian Andes, launching a bold new collaboration with arts organisation Cape Farewell. The expedition brings together ECI climate scientists with artists including Yann Martel, author of the booker prize winning novel, Life of Pi.
Cape Farewell aims to encourage a cultural response to climate change, founded in scientific research. This first expedition to the Andes invites artists to witness the impact of climate change in the region's rainforests, with the aim of inspiring them to communicate, on a human scale, the urgency of the global climate challenge. As Professor Yadvinder Malhi, Director of the Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests explains: "The cloud forests of the Andes and the lowlands of the Amazon are biologically the richest place on earth. They also may be particularly vulnerable to climate change and we are only now beginning to piece together a picture of how these ecosystems are responding."
The ECI and Cape Farewell already have an established relationship through joint involvement in their annual "Tipping Point" event, a conference which brings together artists and climate change scientists. This exciting new collaboration advances that relationship and will culminate in an exhibition of work created by the artists involved at the UK's Southbank Centre and Eden Project.
Related Links and Resources
- Tipping Point: climate and art event
- Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests
- Environmental Change Institute
- Cape Farewell expedition