Garden for a Changing Climate
This mobile planter, created entirely from reclaimed wood, was created to demonstrate the "speed of climate change" by moving from south to north—representing how ecozones will shift as the Earth warms.
The solar powered sensors it contains are part of Atmospheric Orchestra, a project by artist Jared Kelley-Hudgins, which sonifies real-time data on carbon dioxide presence in the surrounding air.
The distance the planter moved from the UIC quad to its home at Gallery 400 (where it will remain for the duration of the GCC project) represents approximately 14 months of climate change.
If plant populations can't move fast enough to keep up with this rapid pace of 3.8 feet per day—predicted based on current fossil fuel use—we will see massive extinctions, loss of arable land and ecosystem collapse on a wide scale.