Visual narratives of climate change: street art as politics of adaptation

MARCELO I. SAGUIER

Puebla

Simposio; 3er Simposio de Adaptación al Cambio Climático en Latinoamérica; 2020

Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Puebla

The impacts of climate change in Latin American countries and societies raise difficult questions with respect to their adaptation prospects. A key challenge of adaptation is communicating the vast information about the scale and risks of climate change transformations in ways that mobilize public awareness and effective policy responses. In an age of visual societies, climate change is not only a biophysical phenomenon. It is also a set of visual narratives that weave social understandings about the causes, consequences and potential pathways to cope with climate-related effects. Different ways of seeing climate change relates to potentially different ways of understanding and responding. This paper presents an analysis of the role of street art as a form of visual practice associated with the (re)production of particular narratives of climate change adaptation in public spaces. The paper firstly discusses what is at stake with the visual representation of climate change, and the place of street art as a site where the politics of climate change takes place. Secondly, it identifies and analyzes the most prominent experiences of mural productions in Latin America inscribed in environmental education programs initiatives of international organizations, public/private foundations and grassroots organizations.