Laboratory for Other Worlds

Responding to artist Patte Loper’s exhibition Laboratory for Other Worlds, this volume presents a range of transdisciplinary essays to propose a design process for living with and beyond ecological damage. Weaving together cosmologies of Western science, Indigenous American epistemologies, and European folkloric sources, this volume demonstrates how exhibitions can be utilized as living forms of knowledge and pedagogy. Attesting that the climate crisis is as much cultural as it is physical, contributors argue how much experimenting and engaging with artwork, installations and designed objects can teach us about ‘damaged worlds’. Scholars and practitioners across art, design, anthropology, climate science, museum studies and poetry respond to Loper’s ongoing collaborative exhibition – an installation on the variable sea level rise in the United States that combines a cluster of maps, sculpture, painting, ephemeral performance, jewellery, and other interactive elements – to consider debates around practices of preservation and care. Richly illustrated throughout and drawing on multiple sources from Christian iconography to Surrealist totemic imagery, they speculate about:- A future salt marsh represented by a large-scale map, created from panels of cotton canvas- Sculptural reliquaries holding precious and sacred remains- Wearable objects made from coastal debris- Artwork reflecting Dakota epistemology- Performance as a cultural response to crises facing wetlands.Putting forward a design process that makes climate science accessible and public, this volume illustrates how interdisciplinary collaboration can generate new forms of refuge and relational knowledge in a damaged world.