RisingEMOTIONS accepted to ACM Creativity & Cognition 2021

Carolina Aragón, Mahmood Jasim and Narges Mahyar recently had their paper “RisingEMOTIONS: Bridging Art and Technology to Increase Public Engagement with Climate Change” accepted to ACM Creativity & Cognition 2021. It will appear at the conference in June. Congratulations to all on a job well done!

Paper Abstract: In response to the threat posed by sea-level rise, coastal cities must rapidly adapt and transform vulnerable areas to protect endangered communities. As such, raising awareness and engaging affected communities in planning for adaptation strategies is critical. However,in the US, public engagement with climate change is low, especially among underrepresented populations. To address this challenge,we designed and implemented RisingEMOTIONS, a site-specific collaborative art installation situated in East Boston that combines public art with digital technology. The installation depicts the impacts of sea-level rise by visualizing local projected flood levels and the public’s emotions toward this threat. The community’s engagement with our project demonstrated the potential for public art to create interest and raise awareness of climate change. We discuss the potential for continued growth in the way that digital tools and public art can support equitable resilience planning through increased public engagement.