Client

Location: Oakland, CA, United States

Completion date: 2015

Artwork budget: $4,000

Project Team

Landscape Architect

N. Claire Napawan

Architect

Brett Snyder

Cheng+Snyder

Other

Sheryl-Ann Simpson

Overview

#OurChangingClimate is a digital humanities and environmental design project that encourages diverse communities to observe and critique their everyday environment through the lens of climate change, and to share those experiences through social media. Community-based workshops helped to support the launch of a digital resilience network and film. This two-minute film links global- and regional-scaled impacts of climate change to the individual-scaled experience of community-members and introduces the preliminary posts and themes that were generated by workshop participants. It encourages viewers to explore and contribute to the network, and gain a new, more personal understanding of climate change.

Goals

This digital invitation represents an effort to re-focus the conversation on climate change from global-scaled environmental impacts to one that recognizes the importance of the personal and everyday ways in which community members experience these impacts. Thus the film was conceived to 1. Synthesize participatory workshop content, 2. Introduce the preliminary digital network created by community-members, 3. Invite new participants to contribute their own experiences to the network, and 4. Support sharing capability on existing social media networks.

Process

#OurChangingClimate represents a collaboration by three environmental designers with expertise in graphics and media design, architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, participatory mapping, and city planning. The project was generously supported by the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) and the Hellman Family Foundation and in collaboration with the Oakland-based non-profit, Institute for Sustainable Economic, Education, and Environmental Design (I-SEEED). In addition to our organizational partners, the project included collaboration with San Francisco Bay Area youth groups who contributed to the digital resilience network and conceived of the idea of a digital invitation film. As such, participant youth images, narratives, (and hands) have been integrated with the film content.