Dear Earth: Art and Hope in a Time of Crisis at the Hayward Gallery

Inspired by Otobang Nkanga’s suggestion that “care is a form of resistance”, the Hayward Gallery at the Southbank Centre brings together the work of 15 artists’ responses to climate change.

The opening room is given to Nkanga’s work, a tree dominating the space, the complexity of its root network upended. Her work presents the natural world in surprising ways, such as in the mesmerising 2014 film In Pursuit of Bling, where she shuffles sheets of crystal-like cards, pops gems in her mouth, bathes in glitter and kind of roosts on a stack of geodes.

The winding gallery space makes emerging into each new room impactful. The journey through the exhibition inspires different emotions. Imani Jacqueline Brown’s work investigating the destruction of her home US state of Louisiana through the mining of natural gas – and the government’s complicity – is rage-inducing in the stupidity and greed it reveals. Anywhere you look, on a local or global level, liberties are being taken with the only home we have.

There is also joy: Ackroyd & Harvey’s portraits of environmental activists in the grass are a delight. Aluaiy Kaumakan’s vibrantly surreal textile sculpture The Axis of Life & Vines in the Mountain (2018) dominates the other half of the room. Using traditional methods of her community, the Pawan of Taiwan, she commemorates their displacement from their home by a typhoon in 2009.

Upstairs, Cristina Iglesias’s installation Pabellón de Cristal I (2014) is a large structure of green glass, into which you climb via concrete steps onto a metal grill above a gently swirling vortex of water. It’s welcomingly soothing and cool on a hot day, like being inside a fountain without getting wet. The light and airy final room is the perfect place for Hungarian artist Agnes Denes’s The Living Pyramid (2015/2024). It is a large pyramid structure planted with wild grasses, and it looks and smells glorious.

As you go, finally, onto the roof terrace you are confronted by birds eyes. Not a bird’s eye view, but a load of birds’ eyes. Artist Jenny Kendler has made an installation from photographs of all the eyes of birds native to the UK. There is also a chance to “speak bird”: speak into a mic which “translates” your words into bird song, which is so cute.

Not all of the work is engaging, but this exhibition sparks moments of joy and wonder amongst its serious message. The problem is, the people who really need to see things like this, will never seek it out. But if any of those visiting are inspired to care a bit more then it’s worthwhile.

Jessica Wall
Photo: Mark Blower

Dear Earth: Art and Hope in a Time of Crisis is at the Hayward Gallery from 21^st June until 3^rd September 2023. For further information visit the exhibition’s website here.