The Cooling Solution: photography and science on the future of air conditioning

June 16, 2023 1:00 PM CEST

The Cooling Solution
Photography, science and the future of air-conditioning

Enrica De Cian, Professor at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice,
research scientist at Fondazione CMCC

Gaia Squarci, documentary photographer

Jacopo Crimi, science communication at Elementsix

Rica Cerbarano, Project manager of Kublaiklan

Antonella Mazzone, Leverhulme Research Fellow

Moderated by: Mauro Buonocore, Fondazione CMCC

How does a photographic and scientific project start? Who is needed to turn it into reality? What steps lead from the complex data of a research project to a photographic exhibition, opening the door to a broader audience in a meaningful and impactful way? 

The authors behind The Cooling Solution share their experiences in designing a visual arts project that combines scientific findings with personal stories, whilst trying to raise awareness about the health consequences of rising temperatures, the growing need for space cooling solutions, and the pitfalls of accepting air conditioning as the only effective heat reduction strategy.

In an interactive dialogue enriched with visual elements, the authors reveal how the results of the academic project ENERGYA – “Energy use for Adaptation”, funded by the prestigious EU ERC Grant – can impact society through the collaboration with different arts and science outreach professionals. 

The event is a joint initiative of CMCC Foundation – Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. It is part of the CMCC webinar series “Foresight Dialogues” and of the Ca’ Foscari Research Communication Week 2023

Through the “Foresight Dialogues“, organized in the context of the CMCC Climate Change Communication Award “Rebecca Ballestra”, writers, artists, journalists, scientists, innovators and entrepreneurs discuss the role of communication, in its various forms, in accelerating the climate transition. The Ca’ Foscari Research Communication Week 2023 is a week of workshops dedicated to learning, discussing and exploring communication and public engagement tools.

JOIN THE DIALOGUE, BE INSPIRED, GET INVOLVED!

Enrica De Cian

Enrica De Cian is a professor of environmental economics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Department of Economics, and a research scientist at the Fondazione Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici and at the European Institute on Economics and the Environment. She is a member of the scientific committee at the New Institute Center for Environmental Humanities, and is the recipient of an ERC Starting Grant for the project ENERGYA (“Energy use for Adaptation”), the results of which will be summarized during the exhibition. At Ca’ Foscari, she also coordinates the PhD in Science and Management of Climate Change.

Gaia Squarci is a photographer and videographer who divides her time between Milan and New York, where she teaches Digital Storytelling at ICP. Gaia is a contributor of Prospekt, an IWMF fellow and National Geographic grantee. With a background in Art History and Photojournalism, she leans toward a personal approach that moves away from the descriptive narrative tradition in documentary photography and video. Her work is focused on themes linked to the relationship between human beings and the environment, disability, aging and family relationships. Her project “Ashes and Autumn Flowers”, about Stromboli Island, was nominated for the Prix Pictet in 2020 and the Leica Oskar Barnack award in 2022. POYi awarded her cinematography and photography work respectively in 2014 and 2017. She was among the 30 under 30 Women Photographers selected by Photo Boite for 2018 and her installation Broken Screen has been selected for the exhibition reGeneration3 at Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne in 2015. Clients include the New York Times, the New Yorker, Internazionale, D di Repubblica, Marie Claire Italia, among others.

Jacopo Crimi is the project manager of Elementsix, an agency specialized in research dissemination and in providing services to academics from diverse fields. Together with Gaia Squarci, he supervised the curation of the photographic shoots and associated stories. He coordinated, together with Enrica De Cian, the scientific writing for the exhibition and the catalog.

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Rica Cerbarano is project manager of Kublaiklan, a curatorial collective that explores widely accessible ways of interacting with photography by designing exhibitions and educational projects for non-profit organizations, institutions, and individuals. At the same time, it investigates contemporary visual culture through research projects aimed at building awareness and promoting a conscious use of photography as a language

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Antonella Mazzone is a Leverhulme Research Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Bristol. She is also an Honorary Research Associate at the Future of Cooling Programme at University of Oxford. Her current research focuses on the anthropology of extreme heat events and addressing cooling poverty from decolonial intersectional feminist perspectives.

Mauro Buonocore coordina le attività dell’Ufficio Comunicazione del CMCC, quali lo sviluppo di strategie di comunicazione online e offline, la gestione dei contatti con i media, le attività di divulgazione e le attività editoriali della rivista Climate Foresight. È stato membro della redazione della rivista Reset e ha svolto attività di consulenza per istituzioni pubbliche e private sui temi legati all’influenza dei nuovi media e dei social network sull’opinione pubblica e sulle opportunità offerte dai media digitali per migliorare i processi partecipativi nell’istruzione e nelle decisioni pubbliche.