A COOL MILLION (“ACM”) is a public arts initiative for climate awareness led by artists and institutions to expand environmental justice programming, education and conservation. Partnering with For Freedoms and Art into Acres, the initiative will collaborate with artists and art institutions across California to install climate-related artworks on billboards, museum facades, and museum-based signage in California and online to coincide with Earth Day 2022.
A Cool Million is the first time in history that California museums have banded together to jointly call for climate action. Institutions involved include Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, The Broad, Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Getty Museum, Hammer Museum, ICA San Francisco, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Museum of the African Diaspora, Museum Of Contemporary Art (MOCA), REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater), San José Museum of Art , SFMOMA, and Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts. The project is organized by Haley Mellin, founder of Art into Acres and Micki Meng, co-founder of Art+Climate Action, with For Freedoms.
Confirmed artist partners include Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Katherine Bernhardt, Petra Cortright, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Madeline Hollander, Sayre Gomez, Hulda Guzmán, Josh Kline, Rebecca Quaytman, Hugo McCloud, David Benjamin Sherry, Robin F. Williams, and Nicole Wittenberg.
Micki Meng, co-organizer of the initiative and a co-founder of Art + Climate Action, writes, “A Cool Million is a solidarity campaign to show the art sector’s commitment to one of the greatest universal issues of our era. Our aim is to inspire deeper commitment to climate responsibility amongst our peers and our publics as we fight for a more sustainable and just future.”
"Recognizing that climate justice and awareness are our shared social responsibility, MOCA is in the process of making climate, conservation, and environmental justice central to the museum’s mission. Supporting the ACM initiative is a part of our effort, alongside other California institutions, to engage collective dialogue on this urgent topic," said Johanna Burton, The Maurice Marciano Director of MOCA.
Haley Mellin, co-organizer of the initiative and a co-founder of Art + Climate Action, and founder of Art into Acres writes, “Meng first contacted me last year about this concept, and the collaborations between the institutions, artists, galleries and non-profits involved since then has been inspiring. Sustainability is truly an all-in process: everyone’s voice is a part of the path to climate homeostasis.”
“Environmental and climate justice are some of the most urgent civil rights issues of our time, and we are thrilled to collaborate with artists and arts institutions to create public artworks to further amplify this crucial conversation and prompt our community to envision a more just future,” said Taylor Brock, For Freedoms
As California suffers from warming temperatures and the worst wildfires since state record-keeping, the visual arts industry takes a collective stand. This partnership between artists and institutions aims to educate, inspire communication and to support a million acres of land conservation relevant to California’s hydrological cycle. Visit www.acoolmillion.org to learn more about critical land areas that support the mitigation of the climate crisis. ACM is a project supported by Art + Climate Action, a collective of California arts professionals and advocates responding to the climate crisis.
ABOUT Art + Climate Action
Art + Climate Action is a California-based collective uniting non-profit art spaces, commercial endeavors, art workers, patrons, and artist studios in the fight for environmental justice. We help organizations (large and small) take account of their carbon output and provide strategic solutions for achieving zero-emissions practices.
ABOUT For Freedoms
For Freedoms is an artist-led organization that models and increases creative civic engagement, discourse, and direct action. They work with artists and organizations to center the voices of artists in public discourse, expand what participation in a democracy looks like, and reshape conversations about politics. Formed in 2016 by a coalition of BIPOC, queer, and allied artists, For Freedoms has organized dozens of artist-designed billboards championing the voices of artists and their communities. A Cool Million is part of For Freedoms’ ongoing Another Justice: By Any Medium Necessary initiative.
ABOUT Art into Acres
Art into Acres is a U.S.-based artist-founded non-profit that supports the permanent conservation of large-scale intact forest landscapes on behalf of the art community. The conservation is focused on local, community-led and research-grounded protection of dense carbon-sinks and high biodiversity forests.
For media inquiries, please contact Christina Caputo at christina@forfreedoms.com SOCIAL HANDLES: @forfreedoms @artandclimateaction #ACoolMillionCampaign