Core PCN Publications
PCN's research contributes to a growing evidence base for the role of artistic practice in climate science. Below are core publications by network members that led to the founding of the PCN. Many more resources will be shared as the EASE project and more are established.
Kasumovic, M. (2025). From observation to understanding: Embedding artistic practice for more effective climate research. Social Science Forum, 41 (110), pp. 139–163. DOI: 10.51936/dr.41.110.139-163
This article explores the potential of artistic practice—particularly visual arts and photography—as an embedded element of climate change research. Drawing on historical and contemporary examples, it argues that art should not merely serve as a vehicle for science communication, but as an epistemic partner in the production of climate knowledge. The paper critiques current collaboration models such as artist residencies and calls for deeper, earlier integration of artists into research design, knowledge framing, and public engagement. Through case studies, pilot projects, and evaluation frameworks, it proposes the development of interdisciplinary networks and co-creative methodologies that support the cultural and emotional dimensions of climate understanding and inspire more meaningful public action.
From Observation to Understanding: Embedding Artistic Practice for More Effective Climate Research
The Scientific Instrument and the Camera
This paper proposes that if the primary tool we collectively rely on to understand our visual world is inadequate for describing contemporary visual reality, it sincerely amplifies the notion that we are enveloped within a reality that has little relationship with the material forms that surround us. This problem challenges image makers to move beyond limited and traditional representations and put to work fresh symbolic languages that can reflect a shifting reality. Via examples from A Human Laboratory, poetic and radical photographic documents are analysed for their ability to bring forth new connections in understanding complex phenomena. These categories, specifically—via a politic of incoherence—can employ the inventive notions of radical experimentation towards novel interconnections in a visual way.
Kasumovic, M. (2023) Radical Documentary and the GardenShip Project. In: Skinner, R. (ed.) GardenShip and State. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, pp. 106-113
GardenShip and State embraces a form of radical curating that seeks to address issues which, due to their scale and complexity, are inherently difficult to represent. In his essay, “Are Some Things Unrepresentable?” Jacques Rancière scrutinizes the challenges inherent within representation. He locates these challenges in the aesthetic and political limitations embedded within the contemporary image. The pursuit of depicting and questioning problems that are as intermingled and multifaceted as global warming and colonization must address these limitations head-on. This opens up an important conversation whereby issues of representation within contemporary culture must be considered alongside notions of documentary, critical curating and new ways of displaying images together.