Everybody Talks About the Weather

Everybody Talks About the Weather is a research exhibition conceived by curator Dieter Roelstraete on view at the historic palazzo of Ca’ Corner della Regina, Fondazione Prada’s Venetian venue, from May 20 to November 26, 2023.

The press preview days are Wednesday, May 17 and Friday, May 19, 2023.
 
Everybody Talks About the Weather explores the semantics of “weather” in visual art, taking atmospheric conditions as a point of departure to investigate the urgency of climate crisis. More than fifty works by contemporary artists and a complementary selection of historical artworks trace the various ways in which climate and weather have shaped our histories and how humanity has dealt with our everyday exposure to meteorological events. The exhibition design created by New York–based studio 2x4 will entwine the artistic dimension of the project with a series of in-depth scientific spotlights developed in collaboration with The New Institute Centre For Environmental Humanities (NICHE) at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice.
 
As stated by Miuccia Prada, President of Fondazione Prada, “the project arose from the idea of taking weather as a starting point to highlight the urgency of climate change, empirically equating meteorology and climatology, and using the tools of art and science together. The goal is to understand the environmental crisis and its undeniable impact on our lives by drawing attention to, representing, and analyzing meteorological phenomena. Climate is a global issue that influences the actions and destinies of people worldwide. Talking about the weather today therefore means talking and worrying about everyone’s future.”
 
Following the exhibitions Human Brains: It Begins with an Idea, presented in Venice in 2022, and Cere anatomiche: La Specola di Firenze / David Cronenberg, currently underway in Milan, this project represents another attempt to address broader cultural challenges with the conjoined tools of science and artistic creation: from the evolution of the study of human thought and the changing meanings of bodies in our societies to the current climate crisis. Through these activities, Fondazione Prada intends to disseminate new knowledge and share the latest results of academic and scientific research with a larger audience.
 
Everybody Talks About the Weather will develop on two levels, the ground floor and first floor of Ca’ Corner della Regina, intertwining the two dimensions of research, the artistic and the scientific. The exhibition will begin with a large LED wall that will loop weather forecasts from a plurality of traditional and online media worldwide. The rooms of the Venetian building will host historical and contemporary artworks which reveal artists’ long-standing interest in “talking about the weather,” from allegorical and en plein air paintings to recent multimedia installations and transnational activism.
 
A selection of the exhibited works will be combined with texts and infographics including brief introductions to the artists and their works alongside scientific graphs, images and data. This alternate reading offers an in-depth insight into physical phenomena and environmental processes implicitly evoked or explicitly addressed by the artists and relating to different times in human history (from the Little Ice Age from the 16th to the 19th centuries to the future of Venice at the end of the 21st century) and to distant geographic areas and cultures (from the desertification and expansion of Sahara to the impact of receding Arctic ice on Inuit life).
 
A series of “research stations” will feature more than five-hundred books, scientific publications and articles, and a selection of video materials and interviews with scholars and activists. They will allow the audience to freely consult the various bibliographic sources of the extensive research behind this project and delve deeper into the scientific and cultural issues addressed by the exhibition.
 
Everybody Talks About the Weather will be complemented by a three-day public program scheduled in October 2023, and an illustrated book published by Fondazione Prada. It will include an introduction by Miuccia Prada, President of Fondazione Prada; an essay by the exhibition curator Dieter Roelstraete; an interview by Roelstraete with Indian writer and anthropologist Amitav Ghosh; a timeline conceived by artists Geissler & Sann; eighteen short essays by international scholars and curators; and a collection of poems by artist, author and activist Cecilia Vicuña. The book also contains the fundamental bibliography on climate dynamics consisting of nearly five-hundred texts accompanied by maps, diagrams, and other graphic representations.