The aim of the Hayward Gallery’s new exhibition, Dear Earth, isn’t just to show how artists are responding to the climate emergency. As expressed by the feminist environmentalist writer Rebecca Solnit in the book accompanying the show, art has the task “to make us the people we need to be to respond to the crisis in the ways we must”.
Crucial to that is a term that has become an art buzzword: care. And caring about Earth means more humility – acknowledging the human role in the climate’s dire present situation – while encouraging a greater balance with nature.
