Climate Change: Culture Change

Frances Whitehead is an artist working from a multifaceted aesthetic and pedagogical position, a kind of deep practice, that focuses on publicly engaged projects that aim to contribute to a sustainable future. She is a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she has founded the Knowledge Lab (KLab) and SAIC4-The Chicago Center for Climate and Culture, a research center for the study of the cultural dimension of sustainable urbanism. The recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the National Endowment for the Arts Access to Artistic Excellence grant, the Tiffany Foundation Award, and the Acuff Chair of Excellence in Visual Art, Whitehead has exhibited widely and worked with numerous transdisciplinary teams, combining artistic practice with other forms of social practice. In 2001 she founded ARTetal Studio to undertake collaborative public projects and speculative design focused on innovation, cultural change and environmental awareness. ARTetal is currently developing a series of linked civic initiatives, including the Embedded Artist Project with the City of Chicago Innovation Program and the Great Lakes Basin Phenologic Garden Project, a climate change/culture change initiative for the Chicago Park District.