Artists Bring Attention to Environmental Calamity

Visual artists Marcia Annenberg and Angela Manno are on opposite ends of the artistic spectrum. 

While Annenberg favors conceptual designs meant to jolt viewers from complacency to action, Manno produces meticulously crafted iconography utilizing techniques first developed in the Christian monasteries of fourteenth century Russia. Her aim is to inspire reverence for all of creation. 

Despite their different styles, Annenberg and Manno agree that using art to illuminate the rapidly unfolding climate crisis is imperative.

The two women have been artmakers for decades; their work has been exhibited widely in the United States and internationally. But the looming threat of climate calamity—increasingly severe superstorms, anticipated droughts and food shortages, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, and massive species’ extinction—gives their latest work urgency and gravitas.

Annenberg began focusing on the environment in 2013, shortly after James Hansen, NASA director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies from 1981-2013 and head of the program on Climate Science Awareness and Solutions at the Earth Institute of Columbia University, was arrested at a protest to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline, an 1,179-mile crude oil transit link between Alberta, Canada, and the U.S. Gulf Coast.   

“I saw the story covered in The Washington Post, which ran a story about Hansen’s arrest as local news, but other newspapers and media outlets ignored it,” Annenberg recalls. “That a top climate scientist was willing to be arrested over the pipeline, and that it was not widely reported, left me speechless.” 

As Annenberg dug deeper, she found that this lack of media attention was not a fluke. There was also scant reporting on the signing of the Paris Climate Treaty, with one newspaper, The New York Post, running a mention of it on page 33. Annenberg’s reaction became “Checkmate: Foxy Moxy,” an installation expressing incredulity over the article’s placement.

Then, in early February, 2019, Annenberg learned of the Hindu Kush Himalayan Assessment, a study that reported that even if carbon emissions are curbed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, 36 percent of the glaciers along the Hindu Kush and Himalayan Mountain range will disappear by 2100.  

“This had a huge impact on me,” Annenberg says. Her first thought: This can’t be real. 

“I eventually Googled it and read the report, which revealed that nearly two billion people in nine countries—Burma, Butan, China, India, Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, and Vietnam—will be threatened by glacial melting and eventual water shortages. The initial impact of the glacial melt will be flooding, but as the water dissipates, there will be a lack of potable water. Where will people from these countries go? What are they supposed to do?”

Annenberg pressed on, finding that prominent mainstream newspapers from every region of the country revealed a consistent lack of attention to climate change information and news. 

“I was horrified,” Annenberg says, “How and why had the media capitulated on reporting such a serious news story?”

Annenberg’s fury led to “Hush My Kush,” a 66-by-68-inch fabric wall hanging that features a checkerboard with the front pages of thirty-two mainstream U.S. newspapers as the black squares. They are partially covered by a veil, with a red, white, and blue bow on one side. 

“I’ve been using the image of a checkerboard for the past few years.” Annenberg says, noting that the chess allusion refers to the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords. “Now,” she adds, “the rest of the world will have to keep us in check.”

As for media complicity in tamping down information about climate change, Annenberg says that Media Matters for America confirmed her findings, reporting that a document released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in September 2019, was covered by just two broadcast networks, CBS News and the PBS NewsHour. A handful of print or online publications also reported the IPCC findings, but they comprised a small minority of press outlets.  

“I want my art to help people realize that the U.S. media is not informing them adequately,” Annenberg says.

While Angela Manno is equally enraged by the lack of press coverage about climate issues, she was pulled into the fray by biologist-writer E.O. Wilson’s claim that by century’s end, 50 percent of the Earth’s animal and plant life will be extinct. As for her artistic approach, she credits a weeklong workshop on Byzantine iconography by artist Vladislav Andrejev that she took in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“Vladislav taught us what the icon is meant to be and spoke about the mystical tradition they represent,” says Manno, who lived in the Southwest at the time but now lives in New York City. “I was just mesmerized, simultaneously hooked on the ideology and the imagery.”

During the workshop, Manno learned the ins-and-outs of Byzantine technique.

“The first application is clay,” Manno explains, “which represents our earthly nature. You put the gold leaf over the clay; these two materials are meant to symbolize our spiritual and physical natures. You next put in the color which is made from ground-up stones mixed with egg yolks and a little distilled white vinegar.” It’s a laborious process, with each seven-by-nine inch icon taking Manno between 80 and 100 hours to complete.

But unlike the early Christians, who produced images of angels and saints, Manno has turned her attention to species that are at risk of extinction, a nod to the holiness of nonhuman creation. The goal? To increase viewers recognition of the diverse species we stand to lose.

“I hope to elevate the non-human world to the status that is typically only given to humans,” she says. As for the icons themselves, Manno says that the first ones she made represent the categories of creatures facing likely extinction: amphibians, birds, fish, invertebrates, mammals, plants, and reptiles.  

“I now keep a list of other animals I want to paint,” she says. “I hope I am bringing awareness to people, a reminder that we have to change our sensibilities if the planet is going to survive.”

Manno says that her environmental awareness developed when she was in high school and first saw photos of the earth taken during 1972’s Apollo 17 space mission. Her twelve-piece homage to the “blue marble,” “Conscious Evolution: The World at One,” is now in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.  

Manno was active in the anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s, and credits Gasland, Josh Fox’s 2010 film about the dangers of fracking, with kickstarting her environmental activism and prompting her to make art focused on ecological sustainability. She adds that the books of E.O. Wilson and Bill McKibben have further informed her outlook.

Everything is connected, Manno says, as Annenberg nods in agreement. “Absolutely. If the human body temperature went up by three degrees, we would know we were sick,” Annenberg says. “If the temp went up by five degrees we’d probably be hospitalized and be aware that we might die. The earth is like the human body.” 

The three of us pause and sit silently. We know that Australia is burning, that tens of thousands of women, men, and children are being displaced, and that 500 billion animals will likely be left for dead. The message is brilliantly clear: If we don’t immediately do something drastic, it will be to our peril.