Press Release
30 November 2015
Can Art Move Citizens to Climate Action? Researchers in Paris are investigating.
Academic researchers will be conducting unique research during COP21 -- attempting to measure how art related to climate change affects viewers.
Graduate students will administer the questionnaires and interviews to attendees at various climate-related art events in Paris during the talks, events part of ARTCOP21 (artcop21.com.) The questionnaires are meant to establish basic information about attendees, determine their essential views about environmental topics and learn how the artworks affected them emotionally. The goal is to compare impact of exposure to each of these on people’s attitudes, beliefs, emotions and behaviors regarding climate change.
Three PhD students and two student assistants from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim will conduct the studies as part of ClimArt, a multi-year study on art, psychology and climate change funded by the Norwegian government.
"This is a special opportunity for us, because many different environmental artworks will be displayed in Paris simultaneously" says Christian Klockner, a professor of psychology at NTNU who leads the research. “I hope we learn whether visual art can be a bridge to action.”
The NTNU team will be speaking with viewers of roughly 30 artworks in Paris. Quantitative data from questionnaires will be collected while qualitative studies, using interviews and rating sheets will add to their data. The team has collected data at environmental events before, but not art events.
In addition to collecting data ClimArt will be commissioning an artist to make art related to climate change in 2016, in an effort to better understand how artwork might inform viewers' views and choices about climate change.