The Cooling Solution investigates how people from different socioeconomic backgrounds around the world adapt to rising temperatures and humidity, in the context of climate change. According to the International Energy Agency, 10 new AC units will be sold every second in the next 30 years, bringing the number of installed units worldwide to 5.6 billion by 2050. The widespread use of AC will save lives, but it could also account for up to 7% of the cumulative greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2100.
Starting from the results of a 5-year research project at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, The Cooling Solution combines scientific data with personal stories, putting the accent on the inequalities linked to access to energy and on the cultural and socioeconomic factors behind the individual perception of thermal comfort. The project displays cases of ineffective and inefficient cooling, hyper cooling, heat dumping, vernacular architecture, and cutting-edge cooling technologies in Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Italy.
Populous, tropical countries with booming economies are central to this trend because those are the countries where AC use will increase dramatically in the next 30 years. Italy was chosen as a western counterpart where the increment in AC use is linked to the warming climate rather than economic growth. The United States won’t see a considerable shift in the future as it is already the country with the highest rate of AC units per household in the whole world.
Artist Bios
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Gaia Squarci
Gaia Squarci is a photographer and videographer who divides her time between Milan and New York City, where she teaches Digital Storytelling at ICP. Gaia is an IWMF fellow and a National Geographic grantee, as well as a contributor for Prospekt. With a background in Art History and Photojournalism, she leans towards a personal approach that distances itself from the descriptive narrative tradition in documentary photography and video. Her work focuses on themes linked to the relationship between human beings and the environment, domestic violence, and family relationships.
Organizations
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THE NEW INSTITUTE Centre for Environmental Humanities (NICHE) at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
THE NEW INSTITUTE Centre for Environmental Humanities (NICHE) at Ca’ Foscari University organizes transdisciplinary public engagement initiatives in the field of environmental humanities. NICHE supports and develops creative and academic collaborations to foster dialogue between scholars, scientists, artists, writers, journalists, and public stakeholders for a new alliance between humanities, social life, and natural sciences with a local and global impact.
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Department of Economics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, a public university founded in 1868 as the first Italian school for advanced education in Business and Economics, now hosts research and educational activities in the areas of economics, foreign languages, humanities, and sciences. The Department of Economics was the first Italian economics department to teach environmental and climatic economics.
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CMCC Foundation
The CMCC Foundation – Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change is an international multidisciplinary research center that brings together climate and social scientists from all over the world to collaborate on producing analyses, scenarios, data, and information on climate change and its relationship with societies, economies, the environment, and solutions for a sustainable future.
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European Institute on Economics and the Environment
At the European Institute on Economics and the Environment (EIEE), founded in 2018 by CMCC in a transatlantic alliance with Resources For the Future (RFF), climate and social scientists from all over the world collaborate to address climate change and other major environmental challenges.
The Cooling Solution
Featuring: Gaia Squarci
Curated by: Kublaiklan collective
Locations
ON VIEW AT: Container 15
View Location Details Download a detailed map of this location Brooklyn Bridge Park – Emily Warren Roebling Plaza1 Water St
Brooklyn, NY 11201
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The project is the result of a collaboration with the ENERGYA research team led by Enrica De Cian at the Department of Economics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, NICHE, CMCC and EIEE, Element6 and Kublaiklan, supported by the European Research Council (GA No. 756194) and Fondazione Ca’ Foscari.
