In a world where climate change looms over every corner of our lives, the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Future Geographies exhibition stands as a bold experiment in how art can mirror our collective reckoning with ecological collapse. This isn’t just a showcase of paintings or sculptures—it’s a call to reimagine our relationship with the planet, framed through the lens of human creativity. As curator Eva Respini explains, the exhibition isn’t about saving the world but about how we think about it, inviting viewers to confront the fragility of existence through the visceral power of art. What makes this particularly fascinating is how artists—many of them outsiders to the climate crisis—use their craft to destabilize assumptions about what it means to live sustainably.
At the heart of Future Geographies is a paradox: the exhibition’s creators intentionally narrowed its scope to the past 25 years, choosing works that reflect the immediacy of climate change while leaving room for speculation about its future. This decision, though seemingly restrictive, becomes a narrative device. Take Liz Larner’s Meerschaum Drift, a sprawling sculpture of repurposed plastic waste painted in hues of blue, white, and green. Its form evokes water, but the texture of the plastic—rough, almost viscous—hints at the messy, unclean realities of our oceans. The piece itself is a metaphor for the slow, inevitable erosion of our ecosystems, yet its scale and presence in the gallery make it feel like a warning rather than a lament.
The exhibition’s strength lies in its refusal to romanticize the past. John Akomfrah’s Vertigo Sea, a three-channel documentary film projected in a soundproofed annex, challenges viewers to confront the vastness of the ocean. The film juxtaposes archival footage of shipwrecks, lighthouses, and early 20th-century sailors with staged scenes of Elizabethan women holding clocks and men in tailcoats sitting on wave-battered cliffs. The contrast between these images—distant, haunting, and intimate—creates a dissonance that mirrors the tension between human history and the natural world. Akomfrah’s work, which Respini describes as “hands-off but deeply emotional,” forces us to question how we’ve come to view the sea as both a source of life and a harbinger of destruction.
Yet not all artists in the exhibition are aligned with the climate crisis. Some, like Jeffrey Gibson, a Choctaw and Cherokee textile artist, hesitate to frame their work around environmental themes. Gibson’s YOU LIBERATE MY ANGER—a beaded punching bag adorned with lyrics from Madonna’s “Justify My Love”—is a curious case study. While the piece doesn’t explicitly reference climate change, its materials and labor-intensive creation speak volumes. Gibson argues that crafting something like this requires patience and intentionality, qualities he sees as essential to sustainable practices. His decision to include the piece in Future Geographies underscores a broader debate: Can art be a vehicle for environmental ethics without directly addressing the crisis?
The exhibition’s collaborative spirit is equally compelling. The Vancouver Art Gallery partnered with the UBC Climate Action Lab and the National Observer to expand its reach, blending artistic innovation with scientific rigor. This partnership reflects a growing trend in the art world: artists and scientists working together to create works that are both intellectually stimulating and emotionally resonant. For Respini, this collaboration is a reminder that climate change is not a solitary struggle but a shared responsibility.
What makes Future Geographies so powerful is its willingness to disrupt traditional narratives. Unlike many climate-focused exhibitions that emphasize solutions or policy, this show asks uncomfortable questions: How do we reconcile our love for nature with our consumption? How do we honor the past while imagining a future that doesn’t repeat our mistakes? These questions are not just academic—they’re existential. In a world where the line between progress and peril is thin, art offers a space to process, to question, and to imagine alternatives.
If you take a step back and think about it, Future Geographies isn’t just about the environment—it’s about the human condition. It’s a reminder that our survival depends not only on technology or policy but on the ways we choose to see the world. As the exhibition closes in Toronto and opens in Vancouver, it leaves us with a simple yet profound truth: the future we build is shaped not by what we fear, but by what we choose to create. In this sense, the exhibition is more than an art exhibit—it’s a manifesto for a generation that must rethink its place in the Earth’s fragile ecosystem.
