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The installation work The Ninth Wave—a fishing boat from the artist’s hometown of Quanzhou carrying 99 fabricated animals in various states of decline—sailed along the Huangpu River, past the Bund, on July 17 as art intervention, before ultimately ‘landing’ at PSA’s Great Hall, where it became an indoor installation. It explores the pressing environmental and ecological issues, and the imminent challenge they pose to the survival of mankind—as evidenced by the high levels of smog in the air and the incident of 16,000 dead pigs floating down the Huangpu River last year.

In a project called “Underwater Home Owners’ Association,” Cortada painted numbers and waterlines onto thousands of large signs. Each number corresponded to how high someone’s house or business was above sea level. A “one” would mean that if the sea level rose one foot (0.3 meter), the house would flood. Cortada gave the signs to home owners in Pinecrest, Fla., which is near Miami. The people who put the signs in their yards created a real home owners’ association to address climate change in their communities.

Unmoored explores a potential future of melting ice caps and rising oceans filling Times Square. Developed in collaboration with Microsoft, Unmoored allows guests to explore a submerged Times Square in mixed reality, to use their mobile phones to access an augmented reality experience.

Guests who look up in Times Square experience an incoming of boats of all kinds, making their way around existing buildings into the square — eventually creating a nautical traffic jam above. Boat age in the air; occasionally bumping into each other while waves break the silence of a surreal floating canopy of hulls. Apparitions appear, based on living species of plankton, and seem to seek connection to the human audience.

Click here for a video of "Unmoored."

The viewer’s interaction and engagement in Ice Watch (2014), serves as a metaphor for the interdependence between humans and nature – a concept that Eliasson permeates throughout much of his other projects. Here, he addressed the staggering impact of climate change and the need for urgent action. In this temporal piece, Eliasson transported 30 large blocks of glacial ice from Greenland to London where he displayed them in the front courtyard of the Tate Modern and Bloomberg’s headquarters. The work calls viewers to touch, hug, and physically interact with the work before it melts and disappears. Through his stark use of visual juxtaposition, Eliasson’s placement of natural elements within a highly urban environment forces one to become aware of the damaging reality of global warming, particularly the ecological changes that are happening around the world.

A sense of urgency is at the heart of Rockman's Pioneers, aiming to show the potential danger human is likely to face in the near future. The artist, who has been creating ecologically minded work since the 1990s, used materials such as soil and plants from the landscapes he depicts, says he is concerned that environmental problems are “unsolvable”. The work shows both the richness of the fresh water ecosystem and the threats it faces from industry and climate change. With the light (the uncertainty) in front, he urges human to take action before it is to late to change anything.

zhc’s Climate Crisis (2016) is a compelling reminder of the detrimental effects of global warming in Bangladesh, particularly amongst rural communities and populations. The contrast between the family of three adorned in ruby red against the dried earthy and barren landscape emphasizes the degree of damage caused by changes in sea levels and rising temperatures. By capturing these desolate spaces, the photographer illustrates how such degradation to our planet has led to a large displacement of people throughout the nation.