Weather and the Whale is a major exhibition project featuring immersive displays of original science research and newly commissioned contemporary artworks. Emerging at the intersections of art and science to connect people to the impacts of climate change, the project brings leading artists into collaboration with marine ecologists at the Friedlaender Lab at UC Santa Cruz.
The art and science focus of the exhibition is a reflection of the unusual assembly of curators who have developed the project. Ari Friedlaender, a renowned marine ecologist in UC Santa Cruz’s Department of Ocean Sciences and Institute of Marine Studies, has worked with Dr. Rachel Nelson and Dr. Alexandra Moore from the Institute of the Arts and Sciences for two years, gathering a team of artists, scientists, and humanists to think about new and creative ways to communicate the complex issues of climate crisis.
Dr. Friedlaender says, “In my lab, we collect data about how the climate crisis affects the behaviors and mortality rates of whales and other marine mammals. However, we still struggle to communicate how the changing climate is being experienced not only by vulnerable marine mammals, but also other vulnerable communities. Working with artists has given us a unique chance to think about how people perceive the current threats– and even take action.”
Presented across the galleries and the screening room at the IAS, Weather and the Whale includes new research and data developed through two years of fieldwork by the Friedlaender Lab. This data, much made public for the first time, delves into the impacts on whales and other marine mammals of environmental toxins, sea ice retreat, and other threats, including what is happening in Monterey Bay and throughout coastal California.
For the internationally acclaimed artists in the exhibition, the research has provided a unique vantage point to creatively engage these and other ecological threats as well as their consequences on whales and all their land-based counterparts.
“Interdisciplinary working groups such as the one behind Weather and the Whale can diversify and refine ethical approaches to both the arts and science practice,” says award-winning artist Carolina Caycedo, who has two new artworks on view, including a large-scale drawing and an embroidered atarraya (an artisan fishing net). “Collaboration enriches our practices, allowing us to go places, engage in processes, and commit to ideas in ways that we would never be able to on our own. In the western art academia, we are taught to value individualism, and told that your visual and intellectual uniqueness is what will make you succeed. However, with time and experience I have learned that through conversation and collaboration our work can become part of something bigger—call it a movement, a transition, a cultural shift.”
Most of the immersive video installations, sculptures, photography, and other artworks on view are newly created for Weather and the Whale. The nine artists and collectives involved provide novel and experiential ways of seeing and understanding the human and nonhuman experiences of living in times of climate crisis– and to imagine global climate justice across land and ocean.
Weather and the Whale is, at its core, an educational project, fostering dialogue between the arts and sciences to create the networks of learning, solidarity, and action required by the immensity of what is happening to the planet. Two satellite exhibitions, Sam Williams: Deep in The Eye and The Belly at the Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery and Yolande Harris: Sound Portal for Whale Bubbles at the Seymour Marine Discovery Center, will be on view in fall 2025. A publication is forthcoming from University of Minnesota Press in spring 2026.
Artists:
Carolina Caycedo, Sharon Daniel, Ashley Hunt, Courtney Leonard, John Jota Leoñas, Libia Posada, Mia Eve Rollow, Christine Howard Sandoval, Suné Woods and Whale Liberation Front (Imani Jacqueline Brown, Cory Diane, and Peter J Bowling).
Scientists:
Natalia Botero Acosta, Ari Friedlaender, Chloe Lew and Logan Pallin.
Weather and the Whale is curated by Ari Friedlaender, Alexandra Moore and Rachel Nelson with assistance provided by Mirra-Margarita Ianeva and LuLing Osofsky. It is organized as part of An Aesthetics of Resilience, with support from University of California Office of the President California Climate Action Seed Grant and the Coha Nowark Art + Science Fund.
About the Institute of the Arts and Sciences
As the keystone public galleries at UC Santa Cruz, the Institute of the Arts and Sciences presents a unique vision for the arts at the forefront of social transformation. Drawing on the resources of a leading research university, the world-class exhibitions at the Institute engage the most critical issues of our time, catalyzing meaningful encounters with the arts and ideas.
The IAS Galleries are located at 100 Panetta Avenue, on the westside of Santa Cruz and are open Wednesday- Sunday, 12 pm-5 pm. Admission is free to the public. More information at https://ias.ucsc.edu/.
