As the world digests the contents of the recent UN report on climate change, the book 140 Artists’ Ideas for Planet Earth by Serpentine Galleries’ artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist and curator Kostas Stasinopoulos couldn’t have been published at a more fitting time.
Born out of Serpentine Galleries’ long-term project Back to Earth, the book includes a compendium of recipes, sketches, photographs, essays, spells and instructions that urge us to engage with the climate emergency in new and imaginative ways in our daily lives. With contributions from 140 artists, scientists, architects and filmmakers, the book follows a ‘do-it-yourself’ guide on how to shape a more ecological and equitable future. 140 Artists’ Ideas for Planet Earth offers innovative ways to rethink our relationship with our environment and change our actions accordingly, from some of the most creative minds of our generation.
Mexican artist Pedro Reyes’ contribution to the book 140 Artists’ Ideas for Planet Earth
Gustav Metzger who is renowned for his efforts to tackle climate change and raise awareness up until his death in 2017 was the inspiration behind the book. Artist James Bridle, who coined the term New Aesthetic, shows us how to assist a plant’s climate change migration journey by carrying them to a new spot. Meanwhile, musician Cosmo Sheldrake offers instructions on making ancient inks and Australian performance artists ask that we bury bananas. Alejandro González Iñárritu wants to get everyone involved by offering a manual for immigrants. Other featured artists include Olafur Eliasson, Etel Adnan, Pedro Reyes, Judy Chicago, Black Quantum Futurism Collective, Vivienne Westwood and Marina Abramović.
The book is published to coincide with the multi-year initiative Serpentine Galleries project, Back to Earth. The programme is a catalyst for change which focuses on ecology and rather than supporting escape strategies from Earth, reserved for the few, it roots itself firmly in the realities of the ground we walk on. In a complex web of interconnected research, intervention and activities, the new book weaves in interdisciplinary knowledge to explore pressing questions: what new ecosystems can foster agency within exisitng ecosystems? And what kinds of collaborative working practices are necessary to present clear responses to complex problems?
Poem True Tree, by Cecilia Vicuña, as featured in 140 Artists’ Ideas for Planet Earth
INFORMATION
140 Artists’ Ideas for Planet Earth, £9.99. serpentinegalleries.org
-
RIBA Stirling Prize 2025 winner is ‘a radical reimagining of later living’Appleby Blue Almshouse wins the RIBA Stirling Prize 2025, crowning the social housing complex for over-65s by Witherford Watson Mann Architects, the best building of the year
-
A24 just opened a restaurant in New York, and no one knows it existsHidden in the West Village, Wild Cherry pairs a moody, arthouse sensibility with a supper-style menu devised by the team behind Frenchette
-
Yinka Ilori’s new foundation is dedicated to play and joy: ‘Play gave me freedom to dream’Today, artist and designer Yinka Ilori announced the launch of a non-profit organisation that debuts with a playscape in Nigeria
-
Jamel Shabazz’s photographs are a love letter to Prospect ParkIn a new book, ‘Prospect Park: Photographs of a Brooklyn Oasis, 1980 to 2025’, Jamel Shabazz discovers a warmer side of human nature
-
A life’s work: Hans Ulrich Obrist on art, meaning and being drivenAs the curator, critic and artistic director of Serpentine Galleries publishes his memoir, ‘Life in Progress’, he tells us what gets him out of bed in the morning
-
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s multiplayer experience at London’s Serpentine invites visitors to connect in the real worldDanielle Brathwaite-Shirley rethinks a typical art gallery visit with a new exhibition at Serpentine which encourages viewers to get off the screen
-
Ed Ruscha and Ruthie Rogers team up on zingy new cookbookEd Ruscha and friend Ruthie Rogers, chef and River Café co-founder, have teamed up on a cookbook with a difference
-
Thomas Prior’s photography captures the uncanny fragility of American lifeA new book unites two decades of the photographer’s piercing, uneasy work
-
Cult classic ‘Teenagers in Their Bedrooms’ captures the angst of being a teenAre 1990s teens so different? Three decades after its original release, this photography book by Adrienne Salinger has been published again, by DAP
-
Make the Booker Prize shortlist your new reading listThis year’s Booker Prize shortlist captures the emotional complexity of our times, with stories of fractured families, shifting identities and the search for meaning in unfamiliar places
-
How to be butch: Clark Henley’s sharp, satirical and playful manual is back in printThe 1982 classic, ‘The Butch Manual: The Current Drag and How to Do It’, full of tongue-in-cheek advice, is available once again
