Weather and the Whale

A deep teal wall carries the title “Weather and the Whale” in a hand-drawn frame, beside a long white map of the Americas traced from Alaska to the tip of Chile, migration routes marked along the coast. Wall text: “The exhibition draws on the rich histories of storytelling inspired by whales across times, cultures, and geographies to promote climate justice. Haida stories of Sgáana, the big fish who swim between earthly and spiritual realms; Abrahamic biblical passages where Jonah is swallowed by a whale; or Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, the ubiquitous US novel—these reveal how whales and the stories they carry permeate belief systems, cultures, economies, and ideas of nationhood. They have also impacted the creatures themselves. Monstrous imaginings of whales normalized their mass slaughter for oil. Recordings of whale songs have rallied broad support for their conservation. Yet, whales—and indeed the entire globe—remain at risk from ongoing climate destruction.” Through the doorway, a red reading room lined with books.
A teal corner of the gallery becomes a field station. A map of the Pacific coast runs across the wall, Monterey Bay picked out in bright chartreuse; two tall tables with stools wait beneath it, and a grid of whale photographs, flukes and backs breaking the water, hangs on the facing wall.
Two black-and-white photographs of bare legs and feet standing on white. Fine ink lines climb the shins like rivers and roads, small marks and words tracing the long way each woman walked.
A wall of hand-dyed paper sheets rises in bands of color, pale straw into rust, rose, and dusk violet, like a slow sunset read in rows. Below, low tables hold papers heaped with mounds of earth-colored adobe.
In a dark teal room, three bright screens hang at angles among colored wooden slats: crowds on a shore, a boat crowded with people on blue water, a man in white gazing out. Two black cubes sit on the floor for viewers.
A huge projection fills a dark room with green: river water and dense leaves behind an orange building, overlaid with glowing interlocking circles and a dark vertical panel at the center, as if the forest were being read through a lens.
Title
Weather and the Whale
Artist/Creator
Carolina Caycedo, Sharon Daniel, Ashley Hunt, Courtney M. Leonard, John Jota Leaños, Libia Posada, Mia Eve Rollow, Christine Howard Sandoval, Suné Woods, and Whale Liberation Front (Imani Jacqueline Brown, Cory Diane, and Peter J. Bowling)
Description
A major exhibition at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences, UC Santa Cruz, that brought internationally acclaimed artists into collaboration with marine ecologists at the Friedlaender Lab. Its title reflects how both weather and whales act as indicators of climate change. Presented across the institute's three galleries and screening room, the exhibition paired new research and data from two years of Friedlaender Lab fieldwork, much of it made public for the first time, with video installations, sculpture, photography, and other works, most of them newly commissioned. The research traces how environmental toxins, sea ice retreat, and other threats affect whales and other large marine mammals, including in Monterey Bay and along California's coast. Together, the science and the artworks explore human and nonhuman experiences of the climate crisis and imagine climate justice across land and ocean. The participating scientists were Natalia Botero Acosta, Ari Friedlaender, Chloe Lew, and Logan Pallin. Organized as part of An Aesthetics of Resilience and funded by a University of California Office of the President California Climate Action Seed Grant, with additional support from the Coha Nowark Art + Science Fund, the exhibition was accompanied by the public program series Intersections of Climate Change, study guides, and a catalog.
Event Type
Exhibition
Date
May 29, 2025 – March 8, 2026
Location
Institute of the Arts and Sciences, 100 Panetta Ave, Santa Cruz, California
Organizer
Curated by Ari Friedlaender, Alex Moore, and Rachel Nelson, with curatorial assistance from Mirra-Margarita Ianeva and LuLing Osofsky
Affiliated Organizations
Institute of the Arts and Sciences, UCSC
Geographic Scope
International / Global
Climate & Ecology Themes
Oceans and Coasts
Biodiversity and Species Loss
Climate Justice
Toxicity and Chemical Exposure
Discipline / Field
Arts & Design
Natural Sciences
Interdisciplinary
Concepts
More-than-Human Relations
Colonialism and Decolonization
Ecological Domain / Habitat
Open Ocean
Audience / Engagement Type
Public / General Audience
Academic / Research
Methods & Approaches
Art and Science Collaboration
Scientific / Ecological Research
Public Programming
Rights
Rights held by artist or creator
Website
ias.ucsc.edu
Item sets
California Art & Climate Archive
UC Santa Cruz
Media
A deep teal wall carries the title “Weather and the Whale” in a hand-drawn frame, beside a long white map of the Americas traced from Alaska to the tip of Chile, migration routes marked along the coast. Wall text: “The exhibition draws on the rich histories of storytelling inspired by whales across times, cultures, and geographies to promote climate justice. Haida stories of Sgáana, the big fish who swim between earthly and spiritual realms; Abrahamic biblical passages where Jonah is swallowed by a whale; or Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, the ubiquitous US novel—these reveal how whales and the stories they carry permeate belief systems, cultures, economies, and ideas of nationhood. They have also impacted the creatures themselves. Monstrous imaginings of whales normalized their mass slaughter for oil. Recordings of whale songs have rallied broad support for their conservation. Yet, whales—and indeed the entire globe—remain at risk from ongoing climate destruction.” Through the doorway, a red reading room lined with books.Weather and the Whale, introductory wall
A teal corner of the gallery becomes a field station. A map of the Pacific coast runs across the wall, Monterey Bay picked out in bright chartreuse; two tall tables with stools wait beneath it, and a grid of whale photographs, flukes and backs breaking the water, hangs on the facing wall.Friedlaender Lab, Mother-Calf Humpback Whale Migrations from the Gulf of Tribugá, Colombia to Antarctica
Two black-and-white photographs of bare legs and feet standing on white. Fine ink lines climb the shins like rivers and roads, small marks and words tracing the long way each woman walked.Libia Posada, Signos Cardinales
A wall of hand-dyed paper sheets rises in bands of color, pale straw into rust, rose, and dusk violet, like a slow sunset read in rows. Below, low tables hold papers heaped with mounds of earth-colored adobe.Christine Howard Sandoval, The First Color Is Red and Fourth Person Singular
In a dark teal room, three bright screens hang at angles among colored wooden slats: crowds on a shore, a boat crowded with people on blue water, a man in white gazing out. Two black cubes sit on the floor for viewers.Mia Eve Rollow, Moontide Divination
A huge projection fills a dark room with green: river water and dense leaves behind an orange building, overlaid with glowing interlocking circles and a dark vertical panel at the center, as if the forest were being read through a lens.Suné Woods, aquí todo está vivo