Challenge

The urgency of climate change begs a question: How do you get people’s attention in a way that moves them to action? That’s the dilemma the nonprofit Community Office for Resource Efficiency (CORE) faces each day in its mission to create a carbon-free, net-zero energy future.

Solutions

By building unexpected and strategic partnerships — bringing the humanities into the climate conversation — and using art as a tool for social change, we created “Imagine Climate,” a monthlong exploration of climate art and technology. This innovative annual program brought together creativity, community and inclusivity in the name of climate action with a dynamic program events whose 2021 centerpiece was the “Stories of Climate Change / Historias del Cambio Climático” mural project at Colorado Mountain College.

Results

Hailed as “a project of this moment,” Imagine Climate captured the imagination to capture participation, drawing on the talents of the Roaring Fork Valley and beyond: 30 local organizations; 40 artists, curators, and scientists; 29 advisory council members; and 89 mural participants in 2021 alone. All programs were free, open to the public, socially distanced, and bicultural, with most being accessible in both Spanish and English, to create an inclusive and safe climate art/action project that couldn’t be cancelled by the pandemic. The collaborative power of the project was best summed up by the three CMC murals and a three-minute audio montage produced by Aspen Public Radio with support from KDNK.