Alexis Rockman

Born in New York, N.Y., in 1962.

I first heard the words “climate change” in 1994 when I asked a paleontologist friend “What are you afraid of for our future?” He mentioned climate change and told me why he was scared. I was terrified but hopeful that we could rally as a species and avoid disaster. A lot has changed since then — mainly, from an environmental perspective — for the worse. I used to hope that knowledge and information would open our eyes to environmental devastation and that we would save the world.

I made art partly to cope with what I was witnessing and to support a campaign for conservation. I believed that if one could render moments of extinction, genocide, population explosion and political discord visible, then we might learn to confront and change the conditions leading to civilization’s collapse. Over the past two decades, I realized we have a crucial Achilles heel: Our brains are wired to be tribal and to think only in the seasonal short term. Even someone as persuasive as Al Gore could not successfully galvanize the world with his books and films. The idea of “sacrificing” for the future seems ridiculous to most people when they are entrenched in a daily struggle for survival. Even if they will listen, people just don’t have the collective will to do much. The engine of capitalism is too powerful.