Program

Seeing the Display: Environmentalism’s Ideological Habitat

With Peder Anker, Fred Turner, and Jodi Dean. Moderated by Astra Taylor.
This panel looks at the ways the structure of exhibitions, design and communication influences how we see what is natural in the autopoietic habitats of the contemporary.

Climate Wars: Propaganda, Debate, and the Propaganda of Debate

With Stuart Ewen, Michael Mann, and James Hoggan. Moderated by Jodi Dean.
Shifting strategies–from denialism to obfuscation, advertising, and public relations–mislead the public. People become cynical and uncertain, mistrusting of any and all efforts to confront the changing climate. With science under attack, what is to be done? How might we break through the propaganda fog and into collective action?

What the Frack are you Drinking?

Wes Gillingham, Program Director of Catskill Mountainkeeper, uses the Watershed Model, a 540 square foot relief map built by the Department of Water Supply, Gas, and Electricity for the 1939 World’s Fair, to illustrate the potential impact of fracking of NYC’s water supply. Following the tour is an emergency short film detailing the public relations strategies and misinformation campaign perpetuated by the gas industry. “The Sky is Pink,” directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Josh Fox, looks at the gas industry’s flagrant disregard for the health and safety of the communities it ravages and the historic decision New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is poised to make.

Climate Change in an Urban Panorama

Juan Camilo Osorio of the NYC-Environmental Justice Alliance guides visitors through a tour of the Queen’s Museum’s famous Panorama of the City of New York. Models can be inspiring as they change the scale of people’s encounter with their environment. By looking at the vast architectural model of New York City from the perspective of climate justice, visitors see directly the challenges and opportunities faced by urban planning for a changing climate. The tour is followed by the projection on the panorama’s back wall of photos and videos from Sandy Storyline, a participatory documentary project initiated by Housing is Human Right and the MIT Center for Civic Media.

Words from our Sponsors: the Genealogy of Patronage in Museums

Corporate sponsorship of museums and science education can compromise the basic idea of museums as reliable sources of common knowledge. By considering historical as well as contemporary examples of museum funding, we look at the power structures embedded in practices of collecting and display.