Climate Change, Climate Change Refugees, and Public Art

GHI West is co-presenting a lecture organized by the Institute of European Studies at UC Berkeley on "Climate Change, Climate Change Refugees, and Public Art." In her talk, Professor Christina Gerhardt presents how climate change has fueled social uprisings and makes life untenable in certain parts of the globe. It is one of the factors motivating migration, yet frameworks for acknowledging the existence of climate change refugees vary. Professor Gerhardt will discuss the status and upsides and downsides of the term. She will frame and reframe perceptions of climate change impacts and their relationship to the ongoing refugee crisis. She will also discuss public art that brings attention to the nexus of sea level rise and climate change refugees.

Christina Gerhardt is Associate Professor and Graduate Faculty at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. Her research and teaching focuses on Critical Theory and the Frankfurt School, Film, German Studies, and Environmental Humanities.