How We Hold the Weather
Year: 2026
Type: dissertation
Abstract: How We Hold The Weather is an exhibition of site-responsive paintings, alternative photography, film, and natural materials that investigates how more-than-human life holds time during climate change, or fails to. Drawing from three years of field research in Atlanta’s healthiest forest, the work looks to living systems for lessons on endurance and adaptation. Clay, plant-based inks, carbon, wildflowers, water, tree rings, and my own family serve as primary sources, revealing how porous, entangled matter reflects the space-time conditions it inhabits. Across the four seasons of one year, the exhibition traces temporal instability as patterns break, environmental cues are missed, and relationships fall out of sync. Understanding “survival of the fittest” as a popularized misinterpretation of Darwin’s original theory “survival of the fit,” How We Hold the Weather proposes that relational learning might help us become more fit to place amid rapidly changing conditions.
DOI: 10.57709/190
Author: Harris, Heather Bird
Language: English
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7160332771
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