Landmark Exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery Confronts Climate Change

On the eve of International Day of Climate Action, the Vancouver Art Gallery announces Future Geographies: Art in the Century of Climate Change, the first major exhibition in Canada to examine the intersection of the climate crisis and contemporary art on a global scale. Featuring works from the past 25 years, this landmark exhibition underscores the urgency and relevance of sustainability and the environment as defining issues of our time.

Presented in a city celebrated for its natural beauty, and home to the founding of Greenpeace, Future Geographies resonates both locally and globally. Organized by internationally acclaimed curator Eva Respini, the exhibition will travel to the Art Gallery of Ontario following its debut in Vancouver.

“Artists are not scientists nor journalists, but they can make us see differently. Through works searing, poetic and hopeful, Future Geographies reinforces the vital role that contemporary art plays in shaping public dialogue and imagining new possibilities,” says Eva Respini, Interim Co-CEO and Curator at Large at the Vancouver Art Gallery. “Future Geographies asks: How do we face ecological collapse with anything other than despair? In this century shaped by climate change, that act of imagining is both a necessity and a form of resistance.”

As the environmental crisis accelerates, artists around the world are responding with urgency, insight and vision. Featuring more than 35 works across a range of media—from large-scale video installations to living sculptures—the exhibition confronts pressing questions about our shared future on this planet. Presented across multiple floors, Future Geographies includes a newly commissioned work by Jeffrey Gibson and marks the first time several artists are exhibiting in Vancouver, including Teresita Fernández, Josh Kline, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Richard Mosse, William Pope.L, Jean Shin and Clarissa Tossin. The exhibition title is drawn from Tossin’s work, in which the Brazilian artist weaves together NASA images of star clusters and planets with discarded Amazon delivery boxes—a ubiquitous symbol of global excess and waste. Together the artworks represent a wide range of responses to the climate crisis: some are stridently activist, while others unfold through poetic material explorations or speculative visions of future geographies.

Future Geographies: Art in the Century of Climate Change embraces a sustainable approach to exhibition making, reflecting the urgency of its subject matter through its own production methods. The exhibition will incorporate environmentally conscious practices such as reusing existing gallery walls and implementing low-impact alternatives to traditional vinyl wall texts. In addition, the Gallery is committed to reducing its environmental footprint through paperless ticketing, auditing and minimizing exhibition-related travel, and embedding sustainability into every stage of planning and presentation.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Vancouver Art Gallery is partnering with the University of British Columbia Climate Action Lab to create unique platforms for dialogue and public engagement within the exhibition itself, as well as investigate additional sustainable approaches to exhibition making. This is a partnership between more than 40 undergraduate students from the university from all different disciplines, led by Eva Respini and Dr. Sara Harris, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences.

Future Geographies: Art in the Century of Climate Change is organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery and curated by Eva Respini, Interim Co-CEO and Curator at Large, with Andrea Valentine-Lewis, Curatorial Assistant. The exhibition opens on Sunday, May 17, 2026 and runs until January 10, 2027. The exhibition will be on view at the Art Gallery of Ontario from March to September 2027. The presentation at the AGO is led by Debbie Johnsen, Assistant Curator, Contemporary Art.