Event

Storm Cloud: Environment, Empire, and the Arts in the Industrial Age

This conference will explore the relationship between humans and the natural world throughout the 19th century, as charted in the work of writers and visual artists. As industrialization altered landscapes and people’s lives, developing sciences offered revelations about Earth and the interconnected fragility of the climate and our species.
Conferences

Organized in conjunction with the exhibition “Storm Cloud: Picturing the Origins of Our Climate Crisis,” on view through Jan. 6, 2025, this interdisciplinary conference will explore the changing relationship between the human and non-human natural world over the course of the long 19th century, as charted in the work of writers and visual artists. As industrialization altered both landscapes and people’s daily lives, developing sciences such as geology, meteorology, and ecology offered revelations about the age of Earth, the interconnectedness of species, the fragility of climate, and the possibility of extinction.

Funding provided by the Dibner Research Fellow and Exhibition Endowment.

Learn more about academic conferences and lectures at The Huntington

Conference Schedule

Fri., Nov. 1

9 a.m. | Registration and Coffee

9:45 a.m. | Welcome

  • Susan Juster (The Huntington), Karla Nielsen (The Huntington), Melinda McCurdy (The Huntington), Kate Flint (USC)

10 a.m. | Session 1: Imperial Ecologies

  • Moderator: Ann Garascia (Cal State San Bernardino)

  • Sarah Leonard (Yale Center for British Art)
    “Hay Meadow and Cotton Field: William Morris’s Insular and Global Ecologies”

  • Lindsay Wells (UCLA)
    “Vegetal Extraction: Plant Hunting and Bioprospecting in Nineteenth-Century British Visual Culture”

  • Kimia Shahi (USC)
    “Tidal Media on the Pacific Coast”

Noon | Lunch

1 p.m. | Session 2: Envisioning Extraction

  • Moderator: Shannon Vittoria (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)
  • Elizabeth Miller (UC Davis)

    “The Intimate Welding of Their Later History: Steamships, Extractivism, and the Nineteenth Century’s Industrial Past”

  • Jennifer Raab (Yale University)
    “Golden Light and Shadow Archives”

  • Gustave Lester (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)
    “Geology, Dispossession, and the Origins of U.S. Industrial Power”

3 p.m. | Break

3:15 p.m. | Session 3: Narrating the Anthropocene

  • Moderator: Aaron Matz (Scripps College)
  • Padma Rangarajan (UC Riverside)

    “Riparian Poetics, Colonial Topographies”

  • Lisa Paravisini-Gebert (Vassar College)
    “The Dying Magdalena River: From Frederic Church to Carolina Caycedo”

  • Nathan Hensley (Georgetown University)
    “The Women on the Stairs: Gesture, Improvisation, Possibility”

Sat., Nov. 2

9:30 a.m. | Registration and Coffee

10 a.m. | Session 4: Empiricism, Art, and Nature

  • Moderator: Julia Lum (Scripps College)
  • Devin Griffiths (USC)

    “Alice Protests: The Afterlives of Wonderland in Environmental Critique”

  • Jesse Oak Taylor (University of Washington)
    “Scaling the Himalaya with Joseph Hooker: Climate, Altitude, and the Earth System”

  • Eleanor Jones Harvey (Smithsonian Institution)
    “When Art Informs Climate Science: The Acute Eyes of 19th-Century American Landscape Painters”

Noon | Lunch

1 p.m. | Roundtable: Engaging the Public on the Climate Crisis

  • Moderator: Stevie Ruiz (Cal State Northridge)

  • Suzanne Pierre (Critical Ecology Lab)

  • Mark Nesbitt (Kew Gardens)

  • Rebecca Lowery (MOCA, Los Angeles)

2:30 p.m. | Concluding Remarks

3 p.m. | Break and Gallery Tour of “Storm Cloud: Picturing the Origins of Our Climate Crisis”

For questions about this event, please contact researchconference@huntington.org or 626-405-3432.

A large plume of black smoke rises in the distance while a person seems to stand nearby.

Unknown, Oil Well Fire, ca. 1920s, photograph, 5 3/8 x 3 7/16 in.  | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. 

An engraved print in full color, depicting a cross-section of earth, with various rocks, minerals, plants, and animals.

William Buckland (British, 1784–1856), Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural Theology, 1837, colored engraving in printed book, 8 15/16 x 5 7/8 in. (22.7 x 14.9 cm). | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

An engraved print in full color, depicting a cross-section of earth, with various rocks, minerals, plants, and animals.

William Buckland (British, 1784–1856), Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural Theology, 1837, colored engraving in printed book, 8 15/16 x 5 7/8 in. (22.7 x 14.9 cm). | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

An engraved print in full color, depicting a cross-section of earth, with various rocks, minerals, plants, and animals.

William Buckland (British, 1784–1856), Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural Theology, 1837, colored engraving in printed book, 8 15/16 x 5 7/8 in. (22.7 x 14.9 cm). | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

An engraved print in full color, depicting a cross-section of earth, with various rocks, minerals, plants, and animals.

William Buckland (British, 1784–1856), Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural Theology, 1837, colored engraving in printed book, 8 15/16 x 5 7/8 in. (22.7 x 14.9 cm). | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

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A large plume of black smoke rises in the distance while a person seems to stand nearby.
An engraved print in full color, depicting a cross-section of earth, with various rocks, minerals, plants, and animals.
An engraved print in full color, depicting a cross-section of earth, with various rocks, minerals, plants, and animals.
An engraved print in full color, depicting a cross-section of earth, with various rocks, minerals, plants, and animals.
An engraved print in full color, depicting a cross-section of earth, with various rocks, minerals, plants, and animals.

“Storm Cloud: Picturing the Origins of Our Climate Crisis”

A black and white image of a smoke cloud rising from the ground with a person walking away.

Sept. 14, 2024–Jan. 6, 2025 | “Storm Cloud” analyzes the impact of industrialization and a globalized economy on everyday life from 1780 to 1930, as charted by scientists, artists, and writers, and contextualizes the current climate crisis within this historical framework.

About “Storm Cloud”

The exhibition has been made possible with support from Getty through its PST ART: Art & Science Collideinitiative.

Red sun dial logo with text reading PST Art

Southern California’s landmark arts event, PST ART, returned in September 2024 with more than 70 exhibitions from museums and other institutions across the region, all exploring the intersections of art and science, both past and present. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information, visit PST ART: Art & Science Collide