The experiential and narrative aspects of the arts can fundamentally shift how we act on the climate change crisis by transforming meaning, not just delivering facts | When the water crisis threatens the Cradle of Humankind in South Africa, one of Earth’s earliest homes of modern humans, facts alone wont shift our behaviour. Across the world, we already know the science, yet we fail to act. South African artist Johan Thom shows how the arts can change what water, soil, and survival actually mean to us. Drawing on personal history, Darwin’s ideas, and years of artistic experimentation, he reveals how beauty, choice, and imagination shape the core decisions that determine our collective future. While the sciences may diagnose the problem, the arts help us feel and experience our changing world in different ways, reminding us that meaning, not data, drives human action | South African artist Johan Thom works across performance, video, and installation to probe the human condition in a changing world. As curator of the forthcoming Soil & Water exhibition at NIROX, he brings artists together to engage with ecology, resilience, and our shared climate future. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
Posts Tagged ‘Darwin’
Beauty and survival in a changing climate | Johan Thom | TEDxJohannesburg
Posted in News, tagged Art, art and beauty, art and evolution, beauty, Climate Change, Contemporary Art, Darwin, Johan Thom, Nirox Foundation, tedx, tedxjohannesburg, water crisis on December 11, 2025|
‘ Commonwealth scholar at UP focuses on relationship between artwork and onlooker’ by Renee Conradie
Posted in News, tagged Art, Canon Collins Trust, Commonwealth Scholarship, Darwin, Johan Thom, nirox sculpture park, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, University College London, University of Pretoria on August 5, 2014|
‘For me, art is always about surplus value. In that sense it is a non-representational activity where one investigates and even creates new possibilities. So it’s about the attempt to look beyond what is already in existence. This is not about making “progress” in an old avante garde sense. Art is more about acknowledging that things are constantly changing and that we do not know what they may become or what exactly they are doing,’
Read more here: Full report here (UP news website link)
johanthom.com 