Against nostalgia

climate change art and memory

Sebastian Groes

pp. 175-187

in: Sebastian Groes (ed), Memory in the twenty-first century, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

Abstract

Climate change raises new intellectual and ethical questions for artists and writers. Do they have an obligation to engage with, and represent, a major global issue such as climate change, and the threat of our extinction? Do they have the responsibility to harness their powers of imagination and force their audience to think about their role in the possible extinction of mankind? Should they move and/or shock us into more (self-)awareness and long-term behavioural change? How can they make us remember to behave more responsibly towards the ecosystem we inhabit? Can one work of art ever successfully address concerns of global proportions? Should we lament the death of the human race, or should we embrace, and immerse ourselves in, the fearful realities that could act as a potentially productive and transforming power that will re-direct our understanding of ourselves as (post)humans?