A multigenerational climate puzzle
Childish goings-on at the United Nations
You know the little animated bumper that would occur between segments on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show - when the moose and squirrel run back and forth for dear life as the earth rumbles and mountains collapse around them? That’s how I feel most of the time, particularly when thinking about the climate crisis. How the hell can you prevent the end of the world?
In the case of Rocky and Bullwinkle, maybe you can’t - despite their scrambling, they end up entombed in the rock. But wait! Just when you think it’s all over for them, their heads sprout out of the ground alongside the flowers. Perhaps we can’t always forestall the worst, but we can still plant hope for a better future.
I’ve thought about this a lot over the past couple of months as I worked on an elaborate art project for Climate Families NYC. I’ve written before about some of the graphic work I’ve done for the group, but this latest piece was a whole different animal. Whereas my earlier contributions were primarily designs intended to be viewed on a screen, this was a tangible artifact that needed to be handled by children in a public setting.
The activation, a collaboration with the international parents’ group Our Kids Climate, was scheduled to be held around the United Nations’ annual Summit of the Future. It was a high-visibility moment for the diplomatic elite to come together and talk about how to build a better tomorrow. Sounds great! But here’s the rub: Though the Summit’s talking points covered all sorts of great things - sustainable energy, land preservation, indigenous justice - it did not once call for the abolition of fossil fuels. Rather than even gently suggesting a slow withdrawal of the undisputed main driver of climate change, the talking points chickened out by failing to mention fossil fuels altogether. Oops!
By the time the group’s leadership came to ask me, for help they’d already brainstormed an idea: a big puzzle that showed the Summit’s talking points with one crucial piece - fossil fuels - missing from the picture. The kids would assemble the puzzle, which would then be marched down the street like a banner. The original artist who raised their hand to work on it had to step back for personal reasons, so was I game to step in? Of course!
My first concern was materials - what was lightweight enough to travel with but sturdy enough to be manhandled by kids? Plywood would be too heavy and cardboard too flimsy. But Hope and I realized we already had something perfect: a giant roll of canvas that we’d bought a few years ago for a since-abandoned project. Half the roll would make an ideal backing, and we could use the rest as the basis for the pieces. I took some quick measurements and used my iPad to sketch out how it might look.
After getting the go-ahead on the sketch, I investigated how we might stiffen the canvas to help the pieces keep their shape. I had high hopes for layering both sides with acrylic, but the test samples just came out way too floppy. This process also helped me realize the original dimensions I was considering - 6’x9’ - were much bigger than would be practical, so I downsized to around 5’6’, which was far more manageable. I started to measure and cut out the pieces - but what would we back them with?
Hope was the one with the epiphany: we could use foam. Not the greenest of substances, to be sure, but we could use the canvas cut-outs as stencils and use spray adhesive to connect the canvas to the foam. The amount of foam we needed required ordering it from abroad, which made for a nerve-wracking week as the deadline loomed, but it ended up being exactly the right approach.
Another challenge was how to connect the finished pieces to the larger canvas backing so the puzzle would hold together as the kids completed it. After a brief flirtation with magnets, we decided that velcro was the easiest way to go. I was concerned it would require the kids to be too exact in placing the pieces, but that wasn’t an issue - the real problem is that the velcro was so strong that the adhesive backing kept getting pulled off the foam whenever we picked up the pieces. But that was a small price to pay for to reach our desired result.
Once we had everything figured it out, it became an intensive two weeks of sketching, painting, and retouching. I had originally hoped to get other Climate Families involved, but I was dealing with a time-consuming work project at the same time, so I ended up mostly working on it late evenings and odd times on weekends. Hope and Dash were an invaluable help, though, painting in the colored areas on top of my sketches as I went back and drew the outlines of letters and shapes with a thick paint marker.
I was really worried about the weight, the velcro, the poles, the foam - the whole thing. But the night before the event, we successfully hoisted it up!
But we all know about best-laid plans. On the morning of the event, we arrived to find out that there was no way in hell we were getting anywhere near the U.N. We started to set up at an open plaza at 42nd and 2nd - right outside the WPIX headquarters - only to get shooed out onto the sidewalk by very unimpressed security staff. It was still a busy area, though, with hundreds of international visitors passing by to enter the warren of barriers that surrounded the U.N. for several blocks in every direction. And we had our own global representation, as NYC parents joined up with a group of Our Kids Climate fellows from around the world to set up the event.
After reading an open letter from parents to world leaders, it was time for the kids to put the puzzle together. There wasn’t quite enough room to lay it on the ground as we’d anticipated, so we held up the backing as they pounced on it with their pieces, completing the whole thing in under two minutes.
Of course, it turned out that the day before our event, the Summit of the Future deigned to release an updated version of their talking points that gave lip service to the need to divest from fossil fuels. The crucial missing piece hadn’t been given velcro to hold it in place, but it stayed long enough for photos. Unfortunately, right as the puzzle was completed, the grommets I’d added to attach the canvas to the poles began to tear out - never having done anything quite like this, I didn’t realize I should have reinforced the canvas to prevent such a thing.
In any event, the whole project was very well-received. I have no way of knowing what impact it had on passersby, but plenty of people stopped to look and snap pics. And we heard a lot of warm feedback afterward from the visiting parents and our fellow New Yorkers. The good news is, we all discussed adapting the puzzle for other events in the future, so we can get more mileage out of the time and money that was put into it.
In the end, the process behind the project was also a lot like the Bullwinkle bumper - a whole bunch of running around and screaming, followed by a moment of beauty and grinning befuddlement when we came out the other end. Let’s hope that our ongoing fight against climate change will follow a similar trajectory.
All photos that weren’t taken in my home: credit Erik McGregor.
Please don’t forget that submissions are open for slips slips, the new literary journal that I’m co-editing! Please see this rundown for information on the project and how you can get involved!
Love this, Jeff.