Agua #1, near Calexico, California

Richard Misrach, American, born 1949

Agua #1, near Calexico, California, 2004

This photo taken by Misrach shows a lone flag waving in the wind, alerting immigrants to a water station during their treacherous, border-crossing voyage; the water barrel is likely a life-saving source in an otherwise unforgiving and barren desert. This photograph is one of eighty works featured in Border Cantos, a gallery created by photographer Misrach and sculptor/composer Guillermo Galindo that uses sound, sight, and salvaged belongings from immigrants (alive and deceased) to humanize the controversial and challenging issue of immigration. Using a combination of photography, music, and sculpture based on possessions lost and found across the desert, Border Cantos gives us a haunting portrait of struggle, sacrifice, and salvation that captures raw human determination in the face of political and environmental instability. Label by Tara Vasanth

That Sinking Feeling

David Gray, Australian

That Sinking Feeling

This photograph shows a woman standing on a small piece of land in the Pacific island nation of Kiribati. She is surrounded by a body of water, with someone snorkeling right underneath her. Many Pacific island nations rest only a few meters above sea level and are at extreme risk of flooding due to climate change. This photograph emphasizes how close seawater is to completely covering these islands, as the woman hardly has any land to rest on. It is predicted that within the next 30-60 years, these islands will become inhabitable due to rising sea levels. Label by Sebastian Rios-Melean

The migration gained in momentum

Jacob Lawrence, American, 1917-2000

The migration gained in momentum, 1941

Lawrence was born in New Jersey and raised in Harlem, experiencing the Harlem Renaissance, but he was the child of two migrant parents who took part in the internal Great Migration following the U.S. Civil War, an experience that Lawrence recaptures through a series of paintings, of which this is the first. While climate disasters are increasingly the impetus for internal displacement in the US, the communities that are most at-risk have remained the same since the Great Migration. They experience these risks now as the result of ongoing discriminatory practices that have been in place since before the Great Migration, and in the communities that received them after the migration. The nearly monochrome environment the migrants travel through in this piece is likely meant to evoke a lack of safety in their original environment, and as climate migration grows more prevalent this gray space only gains more meanings—the ash-coated aftermath of a fire, or the muddy waters of a flood. Label by Frank Kennedy

A Kiribati climate refugee staring at the sea

Josh Haner, American, born late 20th century

A Kiribati climate refugee staring at the sea, 2016

Josh Haner, a photographer who travels the world capturing human struggles, described the story of the man photographed. In it, he discussed how Kaitara Kautu lost his home due to a king tide, so he is having to move him and his daughter in with other family members in hopes he can still provide her with the culture and values of his beloved homeland. This photograph, along with others like it, shows the struggle that millions of people are currently facing. The subject is stranded physically and possibly emotionally as well, as portrayed by his downward-facing gaze. The dark clouds looming in the background further create a sense of fear, foreshadowing how more communities will be impacted by climate change. Label by Lindsey Smith