How artists are helping American communities prepare for environmental disasters

As the American West suffers from increasing wildfires and battles over water rights, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) wants residents to be aware of a risk that looms large even in dry and hot summers: flooding.

“Only about 7% of structures in high-risk zones are covered by flood insurance,” says Margaret Doherty, senior specialist in Fema’s Risk Mapping, Assessment and Planning program, whose jurisdiction includes Colorado, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. an area known collectively as Region 8. “(Fema’s) job is to convince people that they pose a risk and should consider mitigating it.”

Fema funds the arts through its ArtWorks program to communicate the benefits of planning for potential environmental risks and encourage community resilience. Region 8 is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, so Doherty started there, meeting with several art spaces and organizations, from the Meow Wolf immersive art attraction to Denver Public Art. Then in 2021, ArtWorks announced an art competition and ultimately selected Matt Barton’s design Fri Social forms (2021), a site-specific outdoor installation that encourages a variety of interactions. Its curvilinear, topographic forms are often treated by preschool children as a playground, while skateboarders use it as an unconventional skate park. “Legendary pros like Daewon Song and the Adidas team were there last month,” says Barton. The installation also serves as a bioswale, draining rainwater that had previously flooded and formed a puddle on an asphalt plot on the Platte River.

When Barton answered Fema’s call, he was already on the rise Social forms as an artist collaborating with the Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum. Cortney Stell, executive director and chief curator of Black Cube, helped study Denver’s floodplains along the Platte River so that Barton’s design proposal could also alleviate an existing problem. The last Platte flood occurred in 1965, killing eight people and destroying homes, businesses and infrastructure. A 1969 Department of the Interior report classified this flood as the result of a 100-year storm: an event that has a 1% chance of occurring in any given year. Black Cube has negotiated a construction agreement with Taxi, a community living near the river, to permanently house the works and jointly maintain them. Fema was one of three Black Cube funders brought together to make it happen Social formswhich was visited by almost 55,000 people a year after installation.

Community bonds

Audience size is one way Fema measures the success of the ArtWorks program, and it also surveys area residents before and after the project is installed. Beth Osnes, professor of theater and performance studies at the University of Colorado, author of the book Performance for Resilience: Engaging youth on energy and climate through music, movement and theater (2017) argues that quantifying artistic experiences is an overvalued metric that undervalues ​​art in climate communication. “What do people get from art in terms of understanding flood mitigation?” – he asks. – Sure, you can check it out. Art offers a designed experience with many benefits, but also builds resilience.

Resilient communities are those that survive a natural disaster well, which means that in the recovery process, there are fewer deaths and the population remains larger. According to Dan Aldrich, professor of public policy at Northeastern University, resilience is the result of increased social capital, reflecting a sense of connection and trust that often begins with involvement in a local school, sport, faith-based organization or simply knowing one’s neighbors. Aldrich observed that in the event of a tsunami or hurricane, when people should evacuate, communities where people stayed to help neighbors stay safe not only had low mortality rates, but also recovered better because they provided resources such as information or shelter during reconstruction.

“The act of creation is about building a community,” says Osnes, noting that someone besides the artist must be involved in the project, such as stakeholders in the case of Social forms. “Organizing people, building consensus, having a plan – it all takes a lot of work, but art spaces and arts programming do it really well,” he adds.

Learn, discover, connect

As part of Fema’s ArtWorks 2023 program, artists Nathan Hall and Drew Austin traveled to four Denver floodplain neighborhoods with a temporary interactive sculpture. Their Flood gong pavilion (2023) depicts 100 aluminum bells swinging on a steel frame, waiting to be struck by a wooden rattle carved from driftwood of the Platte River. The length of each bell represents the potential flood depth in the corresponding area, with some bells reaching lengths of 5 feet. Hall also wrote the music for the singers who would perform at each location, with lyrics taken directly from the language of flood relief. “I wanted music to be an invitation to learn, discover and connect,” he says.

Like Barton in their installation, Austin and Hall found that the most active participants in their project were children. “Kids naturally grab the attacker and ring the bell,” Austin says. Their enthusiasm often turned adults from observers into collaborators. However, if the aim is to inform the public about flood mitigation, are children effective recipients of the messages contained in Fema’s commissions?

“Children influence their parents,” says Maxwell Boykoff, a professor of environmental science at the University of Colorado. Research shows that children demonstrate significant communication power that can change the way parents and extended families think. Children are good collaborators, adapt well and are trusted messengers, Boykoff adds, “like meteorologists and first responders. When a child brings home information about the risk of floods or wildfires, we see all kinds of positive effects in the target community.”

Art is also very efficient in terms of facilitation costs and return on investment, with each published photo and visitor article reinforcing the initial investment. President Joseph Biden’s administration agrees. In his 2022 executive order entitled Promoting the Arts, Humanities, and Museum and Library Services (14084) Biden said efforts to address the climate crisis are strengthened by federal and community support for the arts and humanities.

It’s no surprise, then, that Fema’s ArtWorks budget continues to grow, as does its geographic reach. The latest presentation of the program, group show FEMA Climate Resilience, Photography and Storytellingon view at Ogden Contemporary Arts in Utah (through October 13). Doherty says the program is in early stages of discussions with Fema officials in Region 9 — which includes Arizona, California, Hawaii and Nevada, as well as the Pacific Islands and 148 Tribal Nations — to potentially issue a call for arts participation in 2025.