THIS CAN’T WAIT: BILLBOARDS FOR ENERGY TRANSITION arose from the question: how can we use printmaking to incite social change? The project takes the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report as its starting point, which declared that we have 9 years to halve our carbon usage to maintain 1.5 degrees of global warming. Billboard-sized ‘banners’ designed by emerging and established artists and designers subvert the language of advertising and re-conceptualize how we talk about climate action and energy transition within public spaces.
Where would you place a billboard for climate action?
At SQUARE, three banners from This Can’t Wait were presented throughout the building’s atrium. The remaining nine banners were available in AR format via a QR code that enabled viewers to superimpose the banners, created by the team in response to local conditions in Canada, to places throughout St. Gallen as a prompt to consider the ways in which students, faculty, and community members might engage with their local policy makers on matters of energy transition and climate action.
This Can’t Wait: Billboards for Energy Transition, 2022. Pop-up exhibition: Unpacking Energy Transition (FluxKit Beta Tests), SQUARE, Switzerland, November 7-12, 2022. Photo: Mareycke Frehner.
Student Banner Artists
