Whitney Johnson

11/8/15
Adam Farcus: Does Speaking about Climate Change Opaquely make it more Transparent?

Instead of sedimenting our already disordered fear of climate change, in a postmodern matter,
Adam Farcus broadens our perspectives about its causes, effects, and its complicated relationships with
the world. He forms connections between that fear and many other paralyzing, mistranslated, and even
commodified fears which can be abused by American culture.
In some of his works, Farcus attempts to make his viewers aware of the link between climate
change and racism. Its too easy as a person of privilege to be disillusioned and distanced from these
facts, and one of the consequences of this is that climate change is left too mysterious to fully understand
or try to correct.
He wants to make these fears and anxieties about climate change more apparent by dispelling
their underlying, lurking natures. I believe his goal lies in the territory of bringing these fears out of the
darkness and to a more immediate, understood surface.
However, instead of transparently presenting facts to dispel our misunderstanding, or even
mishandling, of this terrifyingly escalating environmental issue, Farcus navigates its outskirts. His work
contains and maybe even feeds the flame with more of the same potential bad energy we are too familiar
with. While adding fear may be able to serve as an incentive for change, it often can have the opposite
effect and incapacitate us from action.
For example, Farcus has utilized commonly held connotations of the secretive and meddling
elements of witchcraft and myth as a metaphor for our misunderstood fears of climate change. This tactic
does make us more aware of our distanced fear. However, it also runs the risk of creating a positive
feedback cycle, or re-instilling that fear in a new, but still misunderstood, manner. Adam states that the

Whitney Johnson
11/8/15
fears and respites he acknowledges, channels, and conjures in his work, also can produce their own
diverse negative side effects. However, its difficult to pinpoint exactly what those negative side effects
might be, or how they might or should function in the world.
I believe Farcus is making a bold and brave leap to talk about an issue that seems to be so taboo.
One reason climate change and even social justice issues might be taboo is because weve polarized them.
For example, the media commonly makes the reductionist claim or insinuation that the issue might be
#bluelivesmatter versus #blacklivesmatter. Where can the conversation go from there? Its a dead end. We
have talked climate change into a corner, and many are still strangely jaded by the simple fact that climate
change used to be spoken of as global warming.
I also think both of these issues are fragile (and I dont mean delicate), only because they have
been through so many misrepresentations and even lies. It might be that Farcus is only tiptoeing around
them. To those who are familiar with arts sometimes messy functions, his works can be complicated
mind-maps that take our brains into a journey of our own personal, yet commonly shared, deep-seated
anxieties about race, privilege, and climate change. However, to a broader audience, they run the risk of
re-instilling fears into places they dont belong.