Vincent J.F. Huang: Art and climate change

Art and climate change: How can art assist small island nations facing rising sea levels?

Vincent J.F. Huang talks about the eco-art he has been practicing since 1999, and discusses his experience of using art to assist Tuvalu's climate crisis at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 55th Venice Biennale. 

More about the artist:

Vincent J.F. Huang received his MFA from Gray’s School of Art, Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland in 2000 and worked in the department of visual communications in ShuTe University of Taiwan, as a senior art lecturer, from 2001 to 2006.  Huang has been selected as the artist-in-residence by the AIR Program of Pier2 Art District at Kaohsiung (Taiwan), Duolun Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai (China), Artspace in Sydney (Australia) and the Arctic Circle Project. He was also the visiting scholar in Zhu Qizhan Art Museum of Shanghai in 2007.

Since 2010, Huang began working with Tuvalu, a small South Pacific island that is facing the risk of becoming uninhabitable due to sea level rise. He represented Tuvalu as an official delegate to participate in the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) COP 18 in Doha, Qatar and COP 19 in Warsaw, Poland in 2012 and 2013, respectively. In the following year, Huang represented Tuvalu at the 55th Venice Biennale and took part in The Arctic Circle led by The Farm Foundation for the Arts & Sciences (FFAS). His international engagement through artistic expression eventually earned him domestic recognition as he received the 7th Presidential Cultural Award in 2013, the most prestigious cultural award in Taiwan.

Huang currently works and lives between Venice and Taipei and devotes much of his artistic efforts into environmental issues relevant to people’s everyday lives. He applies the idea of “social sculpture” (by German artist Joseph Beuys) through his dedication to bringing issues into an art campaign involving the public’s participation while aiming to raise attention to climate change.