Nature Keeps Score: The Climate Emotional Spectrum is a participatory design project exploring how climate emotions like anxiety, grief, and hope are recorded and expressed in both people and the natural world. Through five tactile, interconnected outputs, it invites reflection, shared feeling, and small acts of climate care.
Exhibited in May 2025, this work combined printed and hands-on formats to create an immersive, emotionally resonant experience. Developed as part of my studies, it wasn’t just a conceptual exploration, it also had real-world impacts. For some, it offered a space to feel seen and heard. For others, it became a prompt for environmental action, with community engagement helping to support native restoration efforts.
01. Rings of Record - Ignorance
Painted tree rings show how young people feel about climate change, using real emotional data layered onto natural wood.
02. Extinction Ledger - Avoidance
Pressed leaves and natural materials represent endangered and extinct species in Aotearoa, turning loss into something we can see and reflect on.
03. Ingrained Grief - Doom
Quotes about climate grief and fear are handwritten onto pieces of bark, sharing voices from around the world in a quiet wall of emotion.
04. Pressed in Time - All the Feels
A participatory stampboard where each person uses a carved stamp to show how they feel about climate change, creating a shared mood map.
05. Radiant Acts - Purpose
A circular painting full of climate actions and hopeful words, showing that even small steps can add up to something bigger.
Nga Mihi