Series of five booklets, each A6 size with 16 pages
“Kuuki : the things we take for granted, but cannot live without”, Roper Gallery, Bath Artists’ Studios, 6-18 April 2017
“Kuuki : the things we take for granted, but cannot live without” is a response to climate change and other environmental concerns, and a statement on the desperate need for social change.
As curator Elli Mawby wrote in the (fabulously designed) exhibition catalogue: “In Japanese kuuki (k-oo-kee) means air or atmosphere and is used colloquially in phrases such as kuuki o yomu which literally means ‘read the air,’ but can be interpreted as understanding without explicit information or the unspoken mood or feelings, or the air or atmosphere of a situation, relationship or interaction. Kuuki is also used to refer to “the things we take for granted, but cannot live without.”
To create the “Little colouring books of climate mindfulness” I used data from the UK Climate Projections 2009 to produce colour-by-numbers maps of possible futures under a number of climate change scenarios. The UK Climate Projections are currently used by government and industry in planning, and are available at ukclimateprojections.metoffice.gov.uk.
Alongside samples of the booklets, I provided excerpted maps for people to colour at the exhibition and/or take away.
I ask the audience to colour in the maps, and think about what the future holds for our weather under climate change. Adult colouring books and mindfulness are both popular at present, but this is mindfulness with a twist, aimed at discomfiting, provoking, and galvanising.