What would happen if you could experience what today will feel like in the year 2100? Or feel what tomorrow was like back in 1659? This residency, titled Weather the Weather, will explore ways in which audiences can connect with and experience weather in a sensory way.
Meteorology: a table of the weather. Engraving by R. & E. Williamson, 1815, after Sir John Herschel. Credit: Wellcome Collection.
One of the main barriers to engagement with the debate around climate change is the psychological distance that the discussion can engender. People are generally unable to reconcile their daily lived experiences of weather conditions with the uncertain hypothetical projections produced by climate change models. This residency seeks to bridge this divide by enabling visitors to experience weather conditions from the past, or projected conditions in the future, in order to enable a greater understanding of the impact of climate change.
Informed by the research developed at King’s analysing past and future weather patterns and the technologies used to predict and control these varying phenomena, an outcome of the project will be an installation allowing audiences to experience the weather of that same day but of a different year. This experience will be based on calculations from the past record of climate variability or from model projections of future conditions under certain emission scenarios.
Photograph by: Max Leighton for In Our Nature
The research will be used to plan the different variables (such as light, air pressure, temperature, moisture and precipitation) that will be included within the installation. The residency will also include a website allowing audiences to choose their desired forecast for the installation in advance of their visit, as well as a diverse programme of events exploring climate change and weather.
Find out more about the project on the team's website: www.weathertheweather.info
Inés Cámara Leret is an artist based in London. Inés’ work examines ideas relating to the fields of identity, memory and ecology, combining a strong research approach with a highly experimental making process. She has collaborated with a range of experts (chemists, physicists, crystallographers, biologists and botanists) in a variety of environments and across multiple scales.
She has exhibited internationally and nationally and has worked with institutions like Drugo More, Abandon Normal Devices, MU Artspace and the Museum of Contemporary Art of León in Spain, MUSAC. From 2016-2019 Inés was in residence at Somerset House Studios.
Dr George Adamson is a Lecturer in the Department of Geography in the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy at King’s College London. Since 2016, he has convened King's Climate Research Hub, a multidisciplinary research cluster with a particular interest in cultural perspectives on climate and people.
George's research focuses on the complex relationships between climate and society. He tries to understand long-term variability in climate over the last few centuries and is interested in the way that societies live within climate variability. He also researches how societies 'construct' climate, both through the production of scientific knowledge and through cultural practices that create the 'idea' of climate.
Being Human Festival, 12–22 November 2020
The team showcased their installation online as part of the 2020 Being Human Festival, the UK’s only national festival of the humanities, on 12 and 13 November.
Weather the Weather installation
The project team took part in the Being Human Festival 2020 on 12 and 13 November, streaming their sensory installation online as part of the programme. The installation was developed with the guidance of Dr Bruce Main, Dr Kate Olde and Dr Francis O’Shea, during Ines' King’s Artists residency.
Video by In Our Nature
Below are photos from the installation in situ on King’s Strand Campus.
Photographs by: Max Leighton for In Our Nature