Change Lab Research Fellow: Climate Resilience in Public Art

Forecast’s third Change Lab Research Fellow, focusing on Climate Resilience in Public Art: Paula Castillo

Supporting the efforts around dismantling harmful systems is built into the way we work, and we are acting to address collective trauma and reckon with systemic racism and inequities in the public art field. Our new Change Lab Research Fellowships aim to produce new research and policy suggestions to advance justice, health and human dignity in the field of public art in the United States.

Paula Castillo at the Rio Grande, near Veguita, New Mexico. Photo by Don Usner 2023.

a Latina woman with light, shoulder-length hair smiles as she sits on a bridge railing with a clipboard in hand

We are thrilled that Paula Castillo held the role of our third Change Lab Research Fellow, focused on Climate Resilience in Public Art. Paula’s research aims to bridge the worlds of Climate Resilience and Public Art, to make a tangible impact on national public art policy.

“Paula’s extensive experience demonstrates the depth of research and knowledge necessary to understand and reframe the pervasive unequal systems in this country, as well as how arts and culture can help shape more livable, equitable spaces and encourage a sense of belonging,” says Jen Krava, Forecast’s Director of Programming and New Initiatives. “As a leader in the public art field, we are committed to changing the unequal structures in place. We were inspired by Paula’s work and approach, and we look forward to together forming policy recommendations that will disrupt the status quo.”

Paula Castillo began her work as the Climate Resilience Research Fellow on April 1, 2024.

Read Paula’s Change Lab report on Climate Resilience in Public Art

Climate Resilience
Public-Facing Art Expressions and Under-Resourced Communities

Objectives

Paula identifies these based on the Federal Government’s National Climate Resilience Framework, adapted with a focus on public art to provide a template for which to view the intersection of climate resilience and public-facing art expressions, especially in communities in need:

Embed climate resilience into public art via urban planning objectives
Use public art to increase resilience of the built environment to both acute climate shocks and chronic stressors.
Mobilize capital, investment, and innovation to leverage public art to advance climate resiliency at scale.
Employ public-facing artistic expressions to equip communities with information and resources needed to assess their climate risks and develop the climate resilience solutions most appropriate for them.
Employ public-facing art expressions to help inspire communities to sustainably manage lands and waters to enhance resilience while providing numerous other benefits.
Employ public-facing art expressions to help communities become not only more resilient, but also more safe, healthy, equitable, and economically strong.

Recommendations

Public Art Organizations

Recognize the capacity for public art to serve as a powerful tool for raising awareness about environmental conservation through its educational nature.
Work towards flexibility in funding formulas to meet the needs of communities in need as it relates to climate resiliency.
Recognize how public art can be leveraged by material and tech innovators in collaboration with public artists to create scaling of innovative climate-resilient materials to drive innovation and technological advancement for use in the market in the larger public sector.
Recognize that using innovative material in a public art piece, because of its smaller scale (as compared to large-scale buildings), becomes a perfect partner for conservation research to confirm its longevity and climate-resilient attributes, such as low greenhouse emissions, energy efficiency, low maintenance, low fabrication costs, and accessibility of materials.
Look for spaces in county, state, and national funding for true public art (beyond the purchase of smaller, gallery-type works) that support rural artists, businesses, and communities toward climate resiliency.

Urban Planners

Work towards integrating public art as an essential player and partner in urban efforts to achieve climate sustainability and sustainable development.
Address building codes. Agencies work to increase their adaptability and flexibility of diverse materials and methods, including traditional building and fabrication techniques that do not initially meet building and public art conservation codes/ requirements.

3. City, county, state, and federal jurisdictions

Increase funding for cultural affairs organizations for positions that help navigate partnerships with other non-profits, government agencies, communities in need, and artists with intimate connections to communities.

4. Arts Non-profit organizations

Look for ways to develop partnerships with government agencies, climate experts, engineers, and artists to build climate resiliency in communities in need.
Continue engaging with community climate work but add components that increase the longevity of projects’ community interface to include funding for quality engineering provisions and broad community engagement.

5. Federal Governmental Agencies (like FEMA, EPA and others)

Dedicate funding to involve artists in climate resilience strategies.
Continue to look for ways to develop partnerships with climate experts, engineers, and artists to build climate resiliency in communities in need.

Climate Resilience, Public Art, and Under-resourced Communities

Hear from Forecast Change Lab Fellow, Paula Castillo, about her research on climate change and public art. She is joined by Sherri Brueggemann, Public Art Urban Enhancement Program Manager for the City of Albuquerque Cultural Services Department (retired).

Castillo shares insights from her many interviews, as well as recommendations for how to continue moving forward public art projects that address climate change.

About Paula Castillo

A Latina artist based in Belén, New Mexico, Paula Castillo holds an MFA from the University of New Mexico; she creates performative and sculptural installations inspired by human geography and environmental research. Her recent public-facing work includes Reverse the Curse, a transformative ritual-based participatory performance—juxtaposing Curanderisma, a holistic healing system, with mid-twentieth-century engineering practices—that critically examines the impact of mechanical applications on the Rio Grande River. Other recent public-facing work includes Glyph, Equis, and Trestle, three monumental permanent public sculptures for the Denver Art Museum campus, commemorating Denver’s rich Mestizaje community’s profound cultural, historical, and economic contributions to the development of contemporary Denver.

As a Research Fellow, Castillo’s work is poised to make a significant impact. She will explore how our communities can foster more robust collaborations among public art agencies, public artists who are BIPOC and/or low-income and/or rural, and environmental justice researchers and activists. Her research and recommendations have the potential to provide national public art agencies with invaluable templates, tools, and inspiration. This will enable them to better honor, leverage, and develop the climate-resilient aptitudes of marginalized communities. With public artists from these communities leading the charge, this crucial agenda safeguards our minoritized communities from uncertain climate change implications. Castillo’s Change Lab research aims to pave the way for a climate-resilient future.

Reverse the Curse, by Paula Castillo 2021 – present

This video showcases two public art projects by Paula Castillo related to the health of the Rio Grande and the human and non-human communities that live alongside her.

The first, Reverse the Curse, is a participatory community-based performance art/public art event that uses a traditional/local remedio to reverse a mal de ojo (evil eye) curse on the Rio Grande, North America’s second-longest river and provides, as allegory, a tithing back to the river, a water entitlement to a body of water that has given everything of herself to our human communities but not allowed to have any share of the water she carries. This socially engaged performance rallies concerned citizens living along the river to come together to perform a Nahua titiçih/curandera-derived remedia and common mal de ojo reversal: spitting at the victim. In this case, community folks spit local well water into the river from twenty-two pedestrian bridge passages crossing the Rio Grande from Taos, NM, to Ciudad Juárez, MX. This piece contributed to a larger conversation regarding the guardianship, health, and rights of the Rio Grande and the Middle Rio Grande’s long-term human water security.

The second, About Jetty Jack, inspires reflection on how unjust ecological conditions have been produced and sustained through short-sighted and harmful engineering practices and how that might be made otherwise. The video includes a talk Castillo gave to members of the international EcoArtspace group founded by Patricia Watts simultaneous to this work being showcased at SITE Santa Fe’s “Going With the Flow” a show about western waters, curated by Lucy Lippard and Brandee Caoba featuring Castillo’s work about the Rio Grande.

Organization: Forecast Public Art
Program: Change Lab Research Fellowship
Focus: Climate Resilience in Public Art

Forecast’s third Change Lab Research Fellow’s research bridges the worlds of climate resilience and public art, to make a tangible impact on national public art policy.

The Fellowship entails

Focused Research: Climate resilience and its intersection with public art.
National Policy Platform: Research from the Fellowship includes recommendations on how to address climate resilience in public art policy. The Fellow’s research findings will contribute to the development of a national public art policy platform that prioritizes justice, health, and human dignity for historically marginalized communities.
Model of Change: The final report created during the Fellowship will become a model for shaping the future of public art programs and policies, with a focus on equity and sustainability.

Over 6 months, the Fellow

Conducted in-depth research on climate resilience and environmental justice and public art’s role in addressing these topics.
Developed a report of her findings, to be shared
To influence the development of a national public art policy platform that addresses the needs of marginalized communities.

a text graphic for Forecast Public Art’s third Change Lab Research Fellow, focusing on Climate Resilience in Public Art. Making a tangible impact on national public art policy. Focused research, national policy platform, model of change.

Research Statement + Proposal Prompts

The call for this Fellowship suggested that applicant research proposals may address questions such as:

What do public art programs need to consider related to policy and climate resilience in order to benefit BIPOC communities?
Where are the potential partnerships and collaborations between public artists and current climate policy?

Key Fellowship Details

Duration: 200 hours over 6 months.
Stipend: $5,000.
Location: Fellows work remotely, allowing flexibility in their home base.

Eligibility

Graduate students, recent college graduates, doctoral and post-doctoral researchers, artists, and public art professionals with a working knowledge of public art in the US and some experience in research in the specified topic area were encouraged to apply.

More about the Climate Resilience Fellowship

Forecast Public Art, through its Change Lab Research Fellowship, sought a Change Lab Research Fellow to champion the cause of climate resilience and environmental justice as a central theme in the realm of public art.

Our Change Lab Research Fellows delve deep into areas of critical importance, generating insights to collectively craft a national public art policy platform grounded in principles of justice, health, and human dignity for Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities.

Extreme weather events, pollution, rising temperatures and sea levels, and devastating natural disasters are affecting vulnerable populations unequally, exacerbating social and economic inequalities. Addressing climate change is not merely a matter of environmental concern; it is a pressing issue of social justice and human rights. In this battle for a sustainable future, artists are emerging as powerful allies and leaders, employing their creativity to spark conversations, mobilize communities, and advocate for climate justice. From coastal regions threatened by rising sea levels to Indigenous communities facing displacement due to environmental degradation, artists shine a spotlight on the disproportionate impacts on marginalized populations. These communities, with their history of being disproportionately affected by environmental injustices, are often underrepresented in decision-making processes.

Artists can play a pivotal role in bridging this gap, using their skills to amplify the voices of those most affected by climate change and to advocate for more equitable and just solutions. The reports developed by Fellows through the Change Lab will serve as a beacon of transformation for public art programs, policies, and processes.

For examples of artists practicing this work, explore FORWARD Issue 6: Climate, where we highlight the specific roles artists are playing in the effort to tackle climate change, through case studies on projects spanning the globe.

About the Change Lab

In the Change Lab, we catalyze new thinking, test new approaches, and creatively disrupt the status quo to advance justice in the field of public art. We also pilot new ways of working within the field of public art and allied fields through cross-sector partnerships, on the ground research, and deep community engagement, working with communities to address inequities in all facets of public art.

We will hold a national convening to share back the research and recommendations from all of our Research Fellows, as well as creative visions we gathered through creative listening sessions we held with BIPOC artists and admins across the country in 2023. This convening will also serve as an opportunity for the public art policy platform to be created collaboratively and shared widely.

Future work in the Change Lab will be informed by the public art policy platform, turning concept into concrete action.

Contact

info@forecastpublicart.org

Join us in this impactful journey, where your research can be a catalyst for change, advocating for climate resilience and environmental justice in public art.
Together, we’ll redefine the landscape of public art for the better.

CONTACT US

2380 Wycliff Street
SUITE 200
ST. PAUL, MN 55114

(651) 641-1128

INFO@FORECAST
PUBLICART.ORG