Art, Climate Crisis, and Activism

Please note that this in-person program is filled to capacity. To add your name to the wait list, please click here to fill out a contact information form.

Presented in conjunction with Take Care, this discussion will explore the intersection of the climate crisis, environmental justice, and creative practice. Artworks will provide starting points in examining industry, government, and the museums’ institutional reckoning with the climate crisis.

Moderated by April Brown, Interim Director, Racial and Environmental Justice Committee, the discussion will feature artists Meredith Stern, Dana Heng, and Erik Gould with Dr. Sage Gerson, Assistant Professor, Literary Arts and Studies, RISD and Dr. Hilda Lloréns, Associate Professor, Departments of Marine Affairs and Anthropology, University of Rhode Island.

Free.

April Brown is an educator, artist, ordained minister, and Interim Director of the Racial and Environmental Justice Committee (REJC) of Providence. The REFC is a collaborative initiative by the City of Providence and its frontline communities of color bring a racial equity lens to the City’s sustainability agenda. The REJC developed the Just Providence Framework, the City’s climate justice plan, and implementation of the City’s Green Justice Zones. Ms. Brown holds a B.A. from the American University in Washington, DC, and a Master’s in Education from the University of Rhode Island. 

Meredith Stern obtained a BFA in Ceramics at Tulane University in New Orleans. She is a member of the international printmaking group called The Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative and has a multi-faceted practice that includes printmaking, ‘zine publishing, gardening, and utilitarian ceramic ware.

Dana Heng, multidisciplinary artist and educator living in Providence, RI. She graduated with a BA in Sociology & Studio Art from the University of Vermont in 2015. She is a co-founder of Binch Press and is an artist mentor at New Urban Arts.

Erik Gould is the museum photographer for the RISD Museum and an actively exhibiting fine art photographer. He received his Masters of Fine Arts Degree in Photography from Ohio University and a B.A. in studio art at SUNY Geneseo. He also holds a certificate in graphic design from the Rhode Island School of Design. He has exhibited his work throughout New England, including exhibitions at Photographic Resource Center in Boston, Hera Gallery and AS220, among others.

Sage Gerson, Assistant Professor, Literary Arts and Studies, RISD researches and teaches in the fields of Indigenous literatures and ecologies; environmental justice and anticolonial environmentalisms; 20th- and 21st-century literature; the energy humanities and infrastructure studies; Native, Black and Women of Color feminisms; and futurisms, futurity, and speculative fiction. Dr. Gerson received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a B.A. from the University of Chicago.

Hilda Lloréns, Associate Professor, Departments of Marine Affairs and Anthropology, URI is a cultural anthropologist and a decolonial scholar focused on understanding how racial and gender inequality manifest itself in cultural production, nation building, access to environmental resources, and exposure to environmental degradation. Dr. Lloréns’ research has been centrally concerned with critiquing structural inequalities and dismantling taken for granted notions of power and is the author of Making Livable Worlds: Afro-Puerto Rican Women Building Environmental Justice (2021), Imaging the Great Puerto Rican Family: Framing Nation, Race, and Gender during the American Century (2014), and co-author of the bilingual children's book Environmental Justice is For You and Me (2021).