Falling From The Sky

James Cook University Associate Professor and The Cairns Institute Fellow Robyn Glade-Wright is passionate about climate change and seeks to communicate with the greater public about environmental science through the use of the arts.
Robyn is curating the upcoming exhibition “Falling from the Sky” which she says was inspired by the plight of bats in Cairns that fell to their death in the hot summers a few years ago. She said the exhibition focuses on negative impacts of climate change and environmental pollution that have produced a threatening environment for birds and other non-human forms of life.

The exhibition will involve works from established Cairns artists as well as from our secondary student communities of Smithfield State High, St Monica’s College and Trinity Bay High School. The exhibition will open May 5 on Nguma-Bada campus at The Cairns Institute, the Lux Gallery in Building A4 and the JCU Library in B Precinct.

Keep your eyes peeled for artwork to be displayed on the exterior of The Cairns Institute building in a few months time, it will be Robyn’s main piece titled “Mercury Rising” which seeks to address the bioaccumulation of heavy metal in waterbirds.

Interdisciplinary Symposium
Robyn is not one to sit idly, she is also the project lead for an Interdisciplinary Symposium titled “Environmental Communication: Science Inspired and Arts Delivered”. The symposium will be held May 5 in person at Nguma-Bada, Cairns, video-linked to Bebegu Yumba Townsville and online.

Call for abstracts open
Abstracts can address the theme of Environmental Communication, where climate messaging is inspired by science and delivered in the form of the arts. The virtues of science-inspired and arts-delivered forms of environmental communication is relevant to scholars and teachers interested and engaged in sustainability education. Yet, environmental communication in the arts and creative writing are not widely understood. Bridging this interdisciplinary gap has the potential to deliver crucial and complex climate messages to the public.

Abstracts for 15-minute presentations from a range of disciplines that respond to the theme are welcomed.
Robyn encourages submissions that consider:
• The challenges and benefits of working at the intersection of arts and sciences
• The role of imaginative works in communicating both dire and hopeful climate futures
• Communications and arts approaches to environmental science
• How art and culture are impacted by environmental crises
• Writing and art that aims to communicate environmental problems and/or solutions
• The educational potential of arts in the climate/environment space
• The limits of scientific communication in environmental crises
• Other approaches to the theme not included here

Submit 150-200 word abstracts, a 50-100 word biography, and your institutional affiliation by April 4 to Robyn.gladewright@jcu.edu.au