The west side of the Downtown Mall’s Landmark Hotel has a new look.
Thanks to the work of Dysturb, “a community of freelance photojournalists who place current international journalism in public spaces,” and the Magnum Foundation, a nonprofit photojournalist organization, the wall now sports images depicting climate change from around the world.
The movement, entitled #reframeclimate, began as a street intervention movement in Paris as part of the #COP21 Climate Change Summit in 2015. Little by little, it has worked its way to this side of the pond and finally to Charlottesville.
Each image placed on the west wall is meant to challenge the stereotypes of what climate change really means and to place it in the context of socio-political relations. Each photo comes with information about the photo itself, as well as an SMS-enabled description, in which viewers can hear about the photo and the cause directly from the photographer.
The organizers hope this, and the use of hashtags and Instagram, will help better facilitate an engaged discussion about climate change that wouldn’t otherwise be possible with just the images.
LOOK3, the Dewberry Foundation and the Piedmont Council for the Arts worked in tandem on bringing the exhibition.