Asia Society presents immersive photography and video exhibition visualizing the climate crisis

NEW YORK; January 31, 2024 — Climate change takes center stage at Asia Society with the presentation of COAL + ICE, an immersive photography and video exhibition taking place February 13 through August 11, 2024. The exhibition will be accompanied by a multidisciplinary program series, with performances and activations throughout the city, designed to raise awareness and catalyze responses to the climate crisis.

Encompassing work by over 30 photographers and artists from around the world, the exhibition traces a photographic arc of climate change spanning the past century, from deep within coal mines, to the melting glaciers of the greater Himalaya. Greenhouse gases are warming the high-altitude climate of the Tibetan Plateau, disturbing the great rivers of Asia and disrupting the lives of billions of people downstream. Rising sea levels and extreme weather events are highlighted in the exhibition by an immersive presentation of the video installation Deluge by Gideon Mendel, documenting flooding around the world.  

COAL + ICE is a collaborative visual experience that calls attention to the urgent global issue of climate change. Through intimate portraits and vast, altered landscapes, the works on view document the consequences triggered by our continued reliance on fossil fuels, and bring to life the environmental and human costs of climate change, in Asia and around the world. The exhibition will be presented across four floors of Asia Society, and will culminate with a series of projects by photographers, artists, and designers who foreground a range of differently scaled solutions to the climate crisis including an installation on renewable energy by Jamey Stillings.  

Co-curated by Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas and exhibition designer Jeroen de Vries, and led by Orville Schell, Asia Society Vice President and Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations, the exhibition has evolved since its initial premiere in Beijing in 2011. A growing set of works from around the world visualizes the human consequences of climate change, including droughts, floods, fires, and migration. Each photographer's commitment to capturing our changing environment and its human toll is reflected in imagery curated from their long-term, authored bodies of work.

Visitors to the exhibition at Asia Society will be greeted by a two-story presentation on the Park Avenue building facade of two large-scale photographs by artist Clifford Ross capturing the menacing waves of Nazaré, Portugal, which swell up to 100 feet high with increased hurricane and storm activity.

The immersive installation New York, 2050: A Possible Future, created for Ingka Group (IKEA) for their Action Speaks summit in NY, presents a vision—through sight, sound, and smell—of a thriving net-zero city, where New Yorkers have transformed the way they live to ensure a hopeful and resilient future. It was produced by the UK-based studio Superflux, led by Anab Jain and Jon Ardern.  

Artist Maya Lin has created an interactive presentation from What Is Missing?, a memorial to the places and species we are losing during this sixth mass extinction that highlights memory, action, and hope, and shares new pathways toward a more livable planet. 

Leveraging behavioral science, world-building, and storytelling, Jake Barton’s Accelerator 2050 features a time machine that invites visitors to text with an AI-derived version of their future self about the positive impact of the climate actions they will take now and in years to come.  

Participating artists and photographers
Jake Barton
Bernd and Hilla Becher
Daniel Beltrá
Noah Berger
Matt Black
David Breashears
Jimmy Chin
Bruce Davidson
Cameron Davidson
John Davies
Willem Diepraam
Anna Filipova
Geng Yunsheng
Lewis Hine
Jane Hirshfield
Joris Ivens
Dolf Kruger
Meridith Kohut
Maya Lin
Dana Lixenberg
George Mallory
Gideon Mendel
Niu Guozheng
Darcy Padilla
Gordon Parks
Clifford Ross
Camille Seaman
Vittorio Sella
Nichole Sobecki
Song Chao
Jamey Stillings
Henri Storck
Superflux
Peter van Agtmael
Major E. O. Wheeler
Witho Worms
Yu Haibo 
 
Climate Action Partners 
Asia Society has partnered with over 30 arts, culture, educational, environmental, and community organizations across the city to highlight the breadth of climate-related activities occurring in all five boroughs. Our Climate Action Partners include: American Museum of Natural History, Billion Oyster Project, Bronx River Alliance, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Brooklyn Grange, Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation, City of Water Day, Climate Fresk, Climate Film Festival New York, The Climate Museum, Dysturb, Fotografiska New York, French Institute Alliance Française, Hudson River Foundation/NY NJ Harbor & Estuary Program, Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center, International Center of Photography (ICP), LA MAMA, Lincoln Center, Magnum Foundation, Melting Metropolis, National Sawdust, New York Botanical Garden, New York Public Library, New York WILD Film Festival, NYU Gallatin WetLab, Park Avenue Armory, THE POINT Community Development Corporation, Queens Public Library, Staten Island Museum, The Trust for Governors Island, Waterfront Alliance, and Working & Learning Together Electronics (WALTER).

Support
COAL + ICE is funded by the generous contributions of The Schmidt Family Foundation, Janet Ross, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Frank and Susan Brown, Adobe, Jerome Dodson, Stephanie Hui, Laumont Editions, and many kind donors who wish to remain anonymous; list in formation.

Support for Asia Society Museum is provided by Asia Society Council on Asian Arts and Culture; Asia Society Friends of Asian Art; Arthur Ross Foundation; Sheryl and Charles R. Kaye Endowment for Contemporary Art Exhibitions; The Hazen Polsky Foundation; The Mary Griggs Burke Fund, and Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Project background 
COAL + ICE was first developed by Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations for exhibition at Three Shadows Photography Art Center in Beijing in 2011. The exhibition traveled across China, and was on display at the U.S. Ambassador’s Residence in Paris during COP 21 before coming to the U.S., to Fort Mason in San Francisco in 2018 and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in 2022. 

Asia Society Museum is located at 725 Park Avenue (at 70th Street), New York City. Museum hours are 11:00 am to 5:00 pm, Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is $15 adults; $10 students/seniors; free for persons age 16 and under. Admission to the museum is free on Fridays. Free Friday admission is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Find out more at AsiaSociety.org/NY. Connect with us on Instagram @AsiaSociety, on TikTok @Asia.Society, and on Facebook and X @AsiaSocietyNY.