Climate Grief and Eco-Anxiety in Art: Themes, Forms, and Audience Effects
Mutoni Uwase N.
Faculty of Business and Management Kampala International University Uganda
ABSTRACT
Climate change has increasingly emerged not only as a scientific and political crisis but also as an affective and aesthetic phenomenon. This study examines how contemporary art engages with climate grief and eco-anxiety, focusing on the thematic, formal, and experiential dimensions of such works. Drawing on affect theory, art history, and interdisciplinary approaches to environmental humanities, the paper explores how artists represent emotional responses to ecological loss, including grief, fear, resilience, and hope. The analysis highlights the role of diverse media installation, video, performance, and participatory art in materializing climate-related affects and translating abstract environmental processes into sensory and embodied experiences. It further investigates audience reception, emphasizing how artworks foster empathy, narrative engagement, and, in some cases, proenvironmental action. While climate art can deepen awareness and ethical reflection, its capacity to motivate sustained behavioural change remains uneven and shaped by broader social and political constraints. By situating climate grief within evolving artistic practices and audience dynamics, this study argues that art serves as a critical interface between individual emotion and collective ecological consciousness. It underscores the importance of integrating artistic, educational, and policy-oriented frameworks to address the psychological and cultural dimensions of the climate crisis.
Keywords: Climate Grief , Eco-Anxiety , Environmental Art Affective Aesthetics, and Audience Engagement.
CITE AS: Mutoni Uwase N. (2026). Climate Grief and Eco-Anxiety in Art: Themes, Forms, and Audience Effects. IDOSR JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES 11(1): 42-46.
https://doi.org/10.59298/IDOSRJHSS/2026/1114246