The Pérez Art Museum Miami sits alongside Florida’s Biscayne Bay, where sea levels are rising fast.
Sirmans: “Our whole location is defined by its relationship to the water.”
So museum director Franklin Sirmans says the museum can help get people thinking about the changing climate.
On the building’s facade, a neon sculpture spells out, “Climate change is real.”
And this summer, the museum is hosting an exhibit with dozens of artworks that celebrate the beauty of the Earth and mourn how it’s changed.
One painting shows a mother and child juxtaposed against a dilapidated house on stilts, surrounded by floodwater. A photograph shows an underwater view of a woman treading water, almost fully submerged.
The exhibit started at a museum in North Carolina. But Sirmans says the imagery resonates strongly with people in Miami.
Sirmans: “Those issues of the environment that pertain particularly to water, I think play in a different way with us.”
And Sirmans says the art invites people to reflect on their own connection to the Earth.
Sirmans: “It allows for you to make a consideration of your own self and the way that you go about living in the land.”
Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy / ChavoBart Digital Media
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