virtual reality installation puts climate crisis in colorful new perspective

Artist Sarah Brophy reimagines the risks of climate change as colorful antagonists in “Climate Monsters,” a virtual reality installation outside the Boston Children’s Museum on the city’s waterfront.

Tourists strolling along the HarborWalk will be surprised when they look into a series of viewfinders and, instead of seeing sweeping views of the Boston skyline, they’ll see primary-colored monsters emerging from the ocean. Brophy intentionally tucked the virtual reality software into scenery viewfinders to surprise tourists and spark reflection on how climate change will impact Boston.

“I wanted to bring unexpected stories into a familiar space and kind of highlight the power that magical thinking and indulging in dreaming can have for imagining new possibilities into existence,” says Brophy.

The monsters look just like the eerie, amorphous beings children worry they’ll find under the bed, and that’s no accident. Brophy worked with kindergartners from the Mendell Elementary School in Jamaica Plain to create the monster characters, and she hopes to appeal to a young audience.

In partnership with Little Uprisings, an organization that creates racial justice and social justice programming for kids, Brophy worked with the young students to create a story of monsters attacking the harbor. In the narrative, the students created a hero character that defeats the monsters, allowing them to feel that they have agency over the climate change problem. Their story inspired the monsters that play out in the “Climate Monsters” installation.

“The idea was that this narrative about the climate monsters would be driven by kids, because their generation and future generations are the ones who will face the most volatile effects of climate change,” says Brophy. “It’s empowering them to approach this overwhelming problem from a new perspective, and to think about ways that they can write themselves into being the heroes of the story.”

Brophy created “Climate Monsters” as part of the Boston Public Art Triennial Accelerator program, a project by the Boston Public Art Triennial that supports early- and mid-career artists in making community-oriented works of accessible art.

Children may be a primary audience of the artwork, but the themes are probing for adult viewers as well. Brophy drew on speculative fiction works like “Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler and “A Psalm for the Wild-Built” by Becky Chambers, imagining a future in which the Boston shoreline overtakes the city. That future may not be far off, according to climate research.

To celebrate the launch of “Climate Monsters,” Brophy will host a free community party on Aug. 24 from 2-4 p.m. outside the Children’s Museum. Little Uprisings will run an artmaking activity for families, and visitors will have the opportunity to see “Climate Monsters” and connect with Brophy in person.

The virtual-reality installation allows a playful way in to a serious problem and probes how imaginative thinking can assist with problem-solving, even on a grand scale.

“I hope that people leave feeling a sense of wonder and surprise,” says Brophy. “I hope they leave feeling that they can think of the climate crisis from a new perspective, and that may be through the lens of fiction or sort of as contemporary mythology that helps make this overwhelming subject more digestible and allows a way to write new possibilities into existence.”

ON THE WEB

Learn more at sarahbrophy-studio.com/projects/climate-monsters