Partner Stories

A vast movement for climate justice continues to rise worldwide, directly challenging the powerful interests of those most responsible for the climate crisis, while working towards building a just and equitable response that ensures the health, safety and dignity of all people. At its center, the climate justice movement is driven by an understanding that economic and racial disparities result in unequal, unjust impacts—impacts which are already being felt in communities across the country. Just as importantly, many of the solutions we will need are emerging from these very communities on the frontlines.

Like the Waters, We Rise: Climate Justice in Print opens at the Nathan Cummings Foundation on Thursday, November 21, launching a celebration of the bold, graphic work of print-based artists who are on the frontlines of our Climate Justice movement. 

Artists have long been at the heart of this movement, finding bold, inspiring ways to help uplift struggles, reveal connections between climate and intersecting issues, build public support, and paint a picture of the world we are working to create. Like the Waters, We Rise tells the story of this expansive climate justice movement through a collection of print-based works developed as part of—or inspired by—occupations, direct actions, and mass mobilizations. Taken together, these works show the many terrains of struggle, points of intervention, and solutions of this continually expanding movement of movements.

Like the Waters, We Rise is developed in collaboration with Interference Archive, an all-volunteer “archive from below” located in Brooklyn. For the last eight years Interference has dedicated itself to carefully collecting, documenting, and preserving the cultural work of social struggles throughout the past several decades. 

The exhibit takes place in two parts. The first opens at the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and includes a selection of recent print based work (2005-present) beginning the year that Hurricane Katrina crashed onto the shores of the Gulf Coast. The second opens at Interference Archive in February 2020, and will include a collection of archival prints documenting the historical legacies of movements that gave birth to the current climate justice movement, including the Indigenous sovereignty movement, the farmworker movement, Black liberation struggles, and more. 

The work shown within these exhibitions provides a partial look at a continually growing body of work, one that shows the growing strength and reach of the climate justice movement, a movement through which so many of our issues, struggles, and communities are connected. 

This project was organized by Raquel de Anda (lead curator) and Nora Almeida, Ryan Buckley, Sophie Glidden Lyon, Josh MacPhee, and Siyona Ravi.

Participating artists include: AgitArte, Nikila Badua, Bemba PR, Rae Breaux, Mona Caron, Hannah Chalew, Onaman Collective, Kate DeCiccio, Alec Dunn, Design Action Group, Dignidad Rebelde, Extinction Rebellion, Juan R Fuentes, Gan Golan, Lacy Hale, Aaron Hughes, Jakarundi Graphics, LMNOP, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Nicolas Lampert, Cesar Maxit, Saiya Miller, Dylan Miner, Sunrise Movement, The Natural History Museum, Peter Pa, Paperhand Puppet Intervention, Sadie Red Wing, David Solnit, Chip Thomas, Rommy Torrico, Jessica Sabogal, Rachel Schragis, Jess X Snow, Meredith Stern, Eleanor Warner, Josiah Werning, Ernesto Yerena, Bec Young.

Please join us for an opening reception on Thursday, November 21 from 6:00 – 8:30 p.m. at the Nathan Cummings Foundation. RSVP via Eventbrite is required to attend as space is limited. Guests are first come, first served.

To set up an appointment to visit the exhibition Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m – 5:00 p.m., please contact exhibits@nathancummings.org. 

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Raquel de Anda is an independent curator and cultural producer based in Brooklyn, NY.  De Anda began her career as Associate Curator at Galería de la Raza, a contemporary Latino arts organization in San Francisco, CA (2003-2010).  Her work spans a variety of practices, including producing trans-media film based projects, organizing public interventions and mass mobilizations and curating exhibitions at museums, galleries and alternative arts spaces across the country.

Rooted in the Jewish tradition of social justice, the Nathan Cummings Foundation works to create a more just, vibrant, sustainable and democratic society. The Foundation focuses on finding solutions to the two most challenging problems of our time – the climate crisis and growing inequality – and aims to transform the systems and mindsets that hinder progress toward a more sustainable and equitable future for all people, particularly women and people of color.

Interference Archive is a library and social space run entirely by volunteers in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Its mission is to explore the relationship between cultural production and social movements. This work manifests in an open-stacks archival collection, publications, a study center, and public programs including exhibitions, workshops, educational visits, talks, and screenings, all of which encourage critical and creative engagement with the rich history of how people have organized to transform and improve their lives.