Speaking
Sarah Cameron Sunde is an American, New York based interdisciplinary environmental artist. Her most notable work to date is 36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea, a public, video, and performance artwork made in collaboration with water and communities across the world.
art, artist, water, visual
2808
wp-singular,portfolio_page-template-default,single,single-portfolio_page,postid-2808,wp-theme-bridge,wp-child-theme-bridge-child,bridge-core-3.3.4.7,qode-page-transition-enabled,ajax_fade,page_not_loaded,,paspartu_enabled,qode_grid_1300,qode-content-sidebar-responsive,qode-smooth-scroll-enabled,qode-child-theme-ver-1.0.0,qode-theme-ver-30.8.8.7,qode-theme-bridge,disabled_footer_bottom,qode-portfolio-single-template-1,wpb-js-composer js-comp-ver-8.7.2,vc_responsive

Speaking

Sunde presents her work at the World Economic Forum
Category
curation/culture producer, Project, public art project

Bringing the art of climate into our everyday experience

As an interdisciplinary artist and environmental thinker, I use time, scale, and the human body to create poetic, site-specific experiences that reconnect us with the natural world.

My work lives at the intersection of art, climate, and civic engagement. Through endurance-based performance and deep collaboration with communities and ecosystems, I explore what it means to be in relationship with water over a long period of time—and how that relationship can transform the way we lead, listen, and respond to change. I speak to audiences seeking to cultivate a more embodied, ecological, and courageous approach to leadership in a time of planetary crisis.

“Sarah’s participation in the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos and at the Forum’s Annual meeting for New Champions 2024, in Tianjin was nothing short of exceptional, and her impact resonated deeply across our global, cross-sector community. Her work expands the boundaries of what cultural leadership can mean within global policy and innovation ecosystems.”      — Joseph Fowler, Head of Arts and Culture at the World Economic Forum

“Sunde’s work is a one-of-a-kind manifesto for global issues on climate change, social inequality and freedom of expression….a long lasting experience that keeps reverberating through our multiple senses.” — Adriana Campelo, Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Salvador, Brazil

“Sarah’s art is a provocation that empowers us to do better, to do better together.” — Henk Ovink, Former Special Envoy to the Kingdom of the Netherlands for Water

 

KEYNOTES:

The Art of Climate: How Slowing Down Taught Me To Scale Up

The Art of Translation:  Abstract Ideas into Embodied Experience

Sunde has been invited to present her work and speak in numerous venues for the last 21 years. Her interdisciplinary projects, including her seminal series of works, 36.5 / A Durational Peformance with the Sea (2013-2022 and ongoing) translate people’s abstract idea of climate change into concrete embodied understanding. Her work has also been the subject of many essays and talks by leading environmental and art scholars.  She is also widely considered the American expert on Jon Fosse’s theatrical texts (Nobel Prize for Literature, 2023), and is invited to speak regularly on the art of translation.

 

Recent Speaking Engagements include: 

“Art and Society,” Museum of Contemporary Art (MMCA) and Frieze Seoul, Seoul, Korea

“On the Water Front,” World Economic Forum’s Annual Meetings in Davos and Tianjin, China

“Tides As Metaphor: Proposals Toward Living on Tidal Time,” Long Now Foundation, San Francisco, CA

“At the Sea’s Edge,” Symposium: Art at Water’s Edge, The Park Avenue Armory, New York, NY

“Fosse’s Theatrical Worlds and Beyond,” Mount Sinai Psychiatry Association, New York, NY

Artist Talk & Panel in conjunction with solo exhibition, Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA

SDG Action Zone Talk during United Nations General Assembly, United Nations Rose Garden, New York, NY

 

Additional Talks and Speaking Engagements includes:

New York University, New York, NY
The Graduate Center at CUNY, New York, NY
New York Historical Society, New York, NY
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
The Climate Museum, New York, NY
Arts Brookfield, New York, NY
The Rome Prize Fellows Society, New York, NY
Human Impacts Institute, New York, NY
Auckland University of Technology, Aotearoa-New Zealand
Penn Program in Environmental Humanities, PA, USA
University of Nairobi, Kenya
Universidade Federal, Bahía, Brazil
Bangladesh Environmental Network, Queens, NY
D-CAF Festival, Cairo, Egypt
NYU Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Works on Water Triennial, New York, NY
NYC Department of Design & Construction, Queens, NY
 Theertha /Red Dot Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Britto Arts Trust, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Performance Studies International (PSi), Melbourne, Australia
The Rubin Museum, New York, NY
Oerolcollege, The Netherlands
Over Het IJ, Amsterdam
Jon Fosse Festival, Shanghai, China
Akumal International Artist Residency, Mexico
Kendu Hearth International Conference, Kampala, Uganda
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
ArtRole Women in Action International Conference, Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan
Celebrating Jon Fosse at 50, Bergen, Norway
Guthrie Theater / University of Minneapolis, Minneapolis, MN
The Playwright’s Center, Minneapolis, MN
TCG National Conference, Seattle, WA