Sprawling exhibition set for the Vancouver Art Gallery opts for ‘poetic’ approach to climate activism

Future Geographies: Art in the Century of Climate Change will come to the Vancouver Art Gallery in May 2025. (Courtesy: VAG)

A major exhibition to come to the Vancouver Art Gallery is drawing from over 20 years of creation to inspire hope and positivity around climate action.

A magnum opus set to encompass multiple floors of the esteemed gallery, Future Geographies: Art in the Century of Climate Change brings together a broad collection of works from various artists that highlight the urgency and relevance of sustainability.

It invites audiences to consider innovative solutions, encouraging action rather than despair. There is no room for wallowing here, says the gallery’s curator, Eva Respini.

“I’d been seeing work over the past two decades from artists who have responded in some way to the climate crisis, ideas around ecology and sustainability, and it got me thinking deeply about how I could make a show about this big topic that is not a doom and gloom show,” she says.

Respini’s curatorial vision steps away from the didactic approach – by now most people have watched harrowing climate change documentaries and read alarming news stories. Something “more poetic” was needed, she says.

“Artists are not scientists, nor are they journalists,” says Respini.

“Artists make us think differently. By looking at this topic, something so big and unwieldy, through the lens of art gives us a sense of distance from it that allows us to enter it through something else, through imagination.”

Respini has picked more than 35 works made by artists using all mediums, from large-scale video installation to painting, drawing, and living sculpture. Creatives from near and far are highlighted, as are works both old and new – like the newly commissioned piece by American painter Jeffrey Gibson.

For some artists, like Teresita Fernández, Josh Kline, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Richard Mosse, and Clarissa Tossin, the sprawling exhibition will mark the first time their works have been exhibited in Vancouver.

The exhibition title itself is inspired by the work of Brazilian artist Tossin, who weaves together images of constellations and planets taken by NASA with discarded Amazon delivery boxes to inspire discussion about consumption and waste.

Respini says it is the VAG’s role as a museum to look inward at its own industry – it would be remiss to champion an exhibition on environmental preservation without acknowledging the footprint that the often oversaturated, excessive world of art can leave behind.

“We’re taking this as an opportunity to look at ourselves, how can we be more sustainable?” she says.

“We’ve been looking at practices like reusing gallery walls and finding alternatives to using vinyl wall texts, which is the most unsustainable material of all.” She adds that the gallery has since opted for paperless ticketing and is working to minimize exhibition-related travel.

Respini says she hopes there is a “sense of surprise” among guests who visit the exhibition.

“There are artists that are making work with natural materials that are absolutely gorgeous and still have that material presence in the gallery, “ she says, adding how she hopes the diversity of practices and artists will spark a question within audiences on how the climate crisis can be faced “without utter despair.”

“I do think artists have a role to play in how we answer that question,” she says.

The exhibition opens in May 2026 and will run until January 2027, before moving onto the Art Gallery of Ontario, where it will run until September.