GLOBAL COOLING GENERATION

Live streamed forum featuring global cooling solutions

LIVESTREAM | GARVER FEED MILL PROJECTIONS

Curators

Tova Gorman-Baer | Artist, Higher Education Consortium for Urban Concerns representative

TetraPAKMAN | Artist, Social Practice Activist

Participants

Don is an avid outdoors person with an appreciation for nature. As a fan and advocate of Aldo Leopold and his Land Ethic, he believes we need to live in an ethical manner as a member of the land community and in concert with nature and other people. He believes that currently, much of what we are doing is either unwise or unsustainable, it doesn’t bring us happiness, and we need to take a different direction. Climate change and energy policy are key areas in determining our future direction and that of the planet. He works actively on climate and energy to set us on a different course. He also enjoys outreach and communications to engage people and educate them about the environment. Since there is no planet B, he figures we have to figure out how to explore, enjoy and protect this one.

After two years as the Student Advisor for HECUA’s Art for Social Change program, Tova Gorman-Baer is delighted to bring their experience and enthusiasm to the new role of Campus Representative for the University of Minnesota. Tova graduated from the U in 2018 with a double BA in Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies and Art, with a particular interest in how feminist artists understand human relationships to nature, technology, and ancestry. During their time in college, Tova took HECUA’s Art for Social Change program and was energized and inspired by the unique mix of scholarship, direct action, community-focused art, and personal growth and reflection. Their semester with HECUA and the corresponding internship with Kulture Klub Collaborative encouraged them to always ask who has a seat at the table and find creative ways to invite more people in.

Tova is a Wisconsin native (but not a Packers fan) who has grown up in a strong activist community, attending anti-war and pro-union protest marches since they were too young to remember. Their family raised them to value the revolutionary impact of folk art and song, a value that they have used to anchor themselves in the Twin Cities since they first arrived for college in 2014. Since then, they have found their place in the Jewish community, attending services and completing an arts organizing internship with Shir Tikvah Synagogue and participating in social action with organizations including J-Pride and Never Again Action. They are also an embroidery artist under the name Selkie Stitches. They have shown their work in multiple gallery shows, as well as selling embroidery to raise money for nonprofits like Planned Parenthood, Bunny Besties, and the National Network of Abortion Funds. This year, Tova is excited to start working with Transfabulous, an initiative of the Hennepin Central Library that organizes transgender artists to lead workshops and exhibit their work.

Tova loves networking and having deep conversations with interesting people, both at HECUA and in their personal life. When they aren’t at work, they can often be found biking around the beautiful Chain of Lakes, embroidering, singing with friends, watching horror movies, or asking to pet strangers’ dogs.

Phyllis joined 350 Madison in 2013 and came on staff as community organizer in 2016. She has been organizing for the environment, peace, and justice since 1974 and doesn’t plan to stop. She is the past director of Fitchburg Fields and the West Waubesa Preservation Coalition, and feels that there is no cause more important than preserving a livable climate. As the Tar Sands Team Lead, she loves meeting and supporting people in frontline communities who are threatened by oil pipelines. Outside of work, she enjoys gardening, dancing, and learning foreign languages.

Caide is a Madison native who has long been passionate about social change and radical community. In her organizing work, Caide is drawn to transformative justice and abolitionist models of imagining another possible world grounded in valuing each other’s full humanity. Caide joined the Sunrise Movement at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to be connected to other young people fighting for systemic change. She also organizes with the Democratic Socialists of America and Reparations Thrift.

In her free time, Caide loves spending time with friends, listening to audiobooks, singing rounds, contributing to local radio, and cooking for her co-op.

Amarah (they/them) is a student at the University of Minnesota studying urban studies and sustainability as well as a student advisor at HECUA (Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs) an organization that provides social justice based education. They are also an artist and organize around issues of food and land sovereignty. Amarah enjoys spending time learning with and growing plants, and working with their hands, whether it be digging in the soil, administering first aid, mixing teas, or making jewelry.

Jonathan Patz is Professor & John P. Holton Chair of Health and the Environment, and he directs the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His faculty appointments are in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Population Health Sciences.  Dr. Patz co-chaired the health report for the first Congressionally mandated US National Assessment on Climate Change and for 15 years, served as a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the organization that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.  Some of his other awards include: Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellows Award; shared Zayed International Prize for the Environment; Fulbright Scholarship; American Public Health Association’s Homer Calver Award for environmental health leadership; Case Western School of Medicine Alumni Special Recognition award; Chanchlani Global Health Research Award; elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Professor Patz has taught and conducted research on the health effects of climate change for more than 20 years and has published over 100 peer reviewed studies and several textbooks on the subject. 

TetraPAKMAN, aka Victor Castro Candito is a Mexican artist working in social sculpture. His work focuses on questions/issues of sustainability, the environment, educational strategies, and social networks. His community-generated projects are made from thousands of repurposed, often discarded everyday objects that are gathered by people from all walks of life. TetraPAKMAN’s work has been shown in Mexico, Spain, Peru and the United States. One of the central aims of TetraPAKMAN’s work is to challenge the perception that packaging, and other materials are just trash or recyclables. This process gives participants an opportunity to re-imagine the possibilities and potential of these materials in art, construction and science. Since arriving in Madison in the summer of 2012, he has explored resources for his practice and possibilities for collaborative social sculpture projects. Called the USgathering Project, TetraPAKMAN’s unique process combines participatory workshops, energetic public activities, materials gathering initiatives, school visits, monumental pieces, abstract art, education, and environmental activism.

Tamsie Ringler is a sculptor and foundry artist. Her practice encompasses durational iron casting events and immersive installation and social practice projects to engage environmental awareness. Many of her projects serve as a platform for supporting the work of other artists, Recent projects include Fenced, performed at the Festival of High Temperatures in Wroclaw, Poland, and the River Lee Project, held at the National Sculpture Factory, Cork, Ireland. Recent exhibitions include Still Life, at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Blanket-piece in the exhibition Confluence, Safehouse 1, London and Cutting in, at the Backspace Gallery, University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has received numerous awards including a 2017 McKnight Fellowship and is a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors. She is the Director of Winter is Alive! a cooler world carnival.