1053 Gallery: ECO Action Cards : Art Offers a Way Into Climate Action

Art Offers a Way Into Climate Action at 1053 Gallery

by Robert Brune

FLEISCHMANNS — Rain settled over the Catskills Saturday afternoon as visitors stepped inside 1053 Gallery in Fleischmanns, where tables covered with colorful artwork offered an invitation to approach an enormous subject one small action at a time.

EcoAction Cards, created by artists Kathleen Sweeney and Christie Scheele, combines fine art with practical steps people can take in response to climate change. Rather than confronting visitors with another catalogue of environmental warnings, the project asks them to pick up a card, look at the artwork and consider an action that might fit into their own lives.

The approach grew from conversations surrounding Scheele’s 2023 “Atlas Water” exhibition at 1053 Gallery, where Sweeney participated in a panel discussion about environmental issues. Both women came away wanting the conversation to continue after the exhibition ended. “We were like, what do we do with all of this?” Sweeney recalled. Ideas ranged from a pamphlet to a book before the pair arrived at something more approachable: a deck of cards.

The original project contained 12 cards representing different areas of environmental action. With support from a Smart Energy Art Grant, the concept eventually expanded into a 60-card deck, with five different pathways within each of 12 categories. Subjects range from renewable energy and sustainable travel to reducing plastics, fast fashion, food choices, gardening and banking. QR codes provide a way for people who want more information to continue beyond the relatively simple action presented on each card. 

For Sweeney, accessibility became essential to the project’s philosophy. Climate change can be so large and complicated that information intended to motivate people can instead leave them feeling powerless. Rather than adding to that sense of “doom and gloom,” Sweeney said she hopes individual actions can become part of an “ecosystem of positivity,” with one achievable change leading to another. 

Scheele encountered that feeling of paralysis before the project began. While walking with an informed neighbor and discussing why more people were not responding to the climate crisis, her neighbor offered a simple explanation: people were already overwhelmed. “That’s the ticket,” Scheele remembered thinking. Her response was not to make the message louder, but to offer people more ways into the conversation.

Scheele compared the resulting deck to a smorgasbord or tray of hors d’oeuvres. Not everyone will want everything being offered, she explained. Someone might reject one action while finding another surprisingly easy to incorporate into daily life. “We’re offering all of these choices, this information,” Scheele said, “so that you can pick and choose, but do some things that you’re not doing yet.”

Art became central to creating that invitation. Scheele, drawing on more than four decades as a fine artist, was determined that the cards would feature fine art rather than simply function as illustrated environmental instructions. She reached into a network of artists throughout the Catskills, Hudson Valley and beyond, searching for work capable of complementing sometimes difficult subjects.

Some categories came easily. Others presented an unusual curatorial challenge. How, for example, does an artist visually communicate something like divesting money from institutions whose investments conflict with environmental goals? Scheele turned to conceptual artist Norm Magnuson for that challenge, while botanical artist Wendy Hollender ultimately became a natural fit for the food category.

The visual scope grew considerably after designer Dominick Santise suggested that the expanded deck feature five different artworks within each category rather than repeating the same image on all five cards. The suggestion also created considerably more work. Scheele searched artists’ websites and Instagram accounts to determine whether each had enough work consistent with the original selection, then began another round of requests, permissions and artwork titles. “We’re about 200 more emails than we were before then,” she said with a laugh.

Yet that emphasis on art reaches beyond attracting someone’s attention. Scheele described experiencing art, like spending time in nature, as a stabilizing and centering activity that can take people “out of your head and into your heart.” In confronting something as daunting as climate change, she believes that emotional opening can help people move beyond anxiety toward engagement.

That connection between creativity and action also drew the attention of Eileen Hanrahan of Cornell Cooperative Extension, who listened intently as Sweeney described how the project had grown. “We’re very excited,” Hanrahan said, describing a regional program that funded artists across eight counties to create work addressing clean energy. She said part of the effort is finding creative ways to make clean-energy ideas more accessible and inspire people to act. 

Saturday afternoon, some evidence of that approach could be seen around the gallery itself. Visitors gathered at tables, picked up cards, examined the different artwork and talked with one another about what they found. That interaction may ultimately be as important to Sweeney and Scheele as any individual suggestion contained in the deck. Scheele described the cards simply as “conversation openers.”

The project is already moving beyond its Fleischmanns origins. Sweeney has brought the cards to a Climate Imaginarium workshop on Governors Island, and additional events are being planned, including one expected to focus more closely on the participating artists. 

For a project born partly from concern that people have become overwhelmed by the enormity of climate change, its proposition remains intentionally modest: look at the art, pick up a card, begin a conversation and perhaps find one thing worth doing.