**1. Introduction**

In this chapter, I hypothesise that artist-scientist collaborations can help to generate discrete engagement strategies that arouse public attention towards consciously and effectively engaging with climate and ecological science. The *Blue Radius* art exhibition (hereafter *Blue Radius*) was designed to raise public awareness of climate change-induced sea-level rise with the aim of exploring how art-science collaborations can help citizens to navigate, accept, and understand the future **to make better environment-influenced decisions.**

Human behaviours and activities have been changing the climate and ecology since industrialisation began. From disappearing ice to plastics in our food chain, in a little over 100 years we have speeded up the process of global warming by nearly doubling the volume of carbon in our atmosphere. This excess carbon is a major factor in causing average sea levels to rise at an alarming speed [1]. Also, as glaciers and ice sheets melt, the volume of the ocean is expanding as the water warms [2]. In addition

to the problem of sea level rise, is the ongoing damage caused to marine ecology through activities like coastal sandmining for construction and marina construction on fragile ecological sites, which destroy the seabed environment [3, 4].

However, not all sea level rise is due to climate change. In countries that sit on tectonic plate boundaries, such as New Zealand, the coastline is also sinking due to "vertical land movement" (**Figure 1**) [5]. This is expected to accelerate the impact of climate change-induced sea level rise in high-population areas such as the Auckland region—currently 1,715,600 citizens with a population density of 347 people per km 2 (June 2021) [6]. Current safeguarding choices focus on coastline protection using sea walls and flood defences, adapting buildings and roads, or by retreating from "atrisk" areas [7]. However, environmental scientists, such as Professor Judy Lawrence and Dr. Paula Blackett, are calling for a "shift in mindset" where citizens support longer term solutions to protect future generations using relevant, accessible information to inform better decision-making [8].

*Map of New Zealand showing areas impacted by sea level rise (Image Credit: Auckland Council).*

#### *Arousing Public Attention on Sea Level Rise in New Zealand through Art-Science Collaboration DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108329*

It is beyond doubt that present modes of culture and lifestyles are contributing towards the climatic and ecological problems. But how society chooses to respond to these multiple ecological crises will determine its future [9]. In the most recent report by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), experts stress that "if human behaviours do not change then existing climate trends will worsen" [10]. Therefore, if we are to safeguard the future, we must come to terms with our unsustainable relationship with nature. We need to learn about the consequences that have been unleashed and embrace ways to live more sustainably so that we do not endanger the opportunities for future generations, both human and nonhuman, to meet their basic needs. Sustainable development involves the creation of new things—such as environments, objects, and lifestyles—but also new visions and concepts that can support ethical, proactive, and optimistic future development [11].

This is where art can help "summon the future" by enabling us to perceive with new eyes, new minds, and new awareness [12]. But these possible futures must also include more holistic perspectives that show compassion and empathy for the creatures we live with. To this end, art can promote a change in attitude that involves "joy, ingenuity, self-respect, and a responsible attitude" [11], all of which can be highly effective in helping communities to see themselves as part of the nature/culture continuum [13].

Art helps to develop aesthetic intelligence, which is the human capacity to understand beauty; "where something deep within us is touched and fills us with delight" [14]. Aesthetic intelligence is a perceptual communication that arises through embodied and social experience: "a call-and-response between [self] and place" that occurs through experiences, memories, and making connections [15]. Ecological art highlights the interdependence between society and nature, commodities and matter. Its focus is on the interrelationships between the physical and the biological, cultural, political, and historical aspects of ecological systems. Art with an ecological focus seeks to reclaim, restore, or remediate natural environments. It informs the public about the environmental problems we face and aims to re-envision ecological relationships, proposing new possibilities for co-existence, sustainability, and healing [16, 17].

While artists are not often qualified to spread scientific knowledge, nor explain the environmental effects of decisions made in society they are able to offer artistic comprehension of life-based on aesthetic intelligence—through the experiential and observed, and the development of one's own mental images, public expression, and what can be visualised [11, 14]. When artists work with scientists they can create new awareness of the climate crisis and help citizens to perceive the future with new perspectives. "[T]he combination of science and artistic expression [can] bridge the emotional divide and penetrate the audience's consciousness with a glimpse of reality" [18]. "Critical and creative thinking […] provide a unique and innovative way to engage with both the challenges and opportunities arising from climate change" [19].
