A photographic and scientific project, in collaboration with CMCC, showing how people from different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds adapt to high temperature and humidity conditions in temperate and tropical countries. The photographic exhibition “The Cooling Solution” is on display at Ca’ Foscari University Venice (Ca’ Foscari Zattere – Cultural Flow Zone and the University’s Cortile Grande) from 19 May to 31 July 2023.

The Cooling Solution is a scientific project that uses photography to investigate how people of different socioeconomic backgrounds around the world adapt to high temperatures and humidity. It combines scientific findings with personal stories, offering a visual journey through people’s lived experiences of ineffective and inefficient cooling, hypercooling, heat dumping, vernacular architecture, and cutting-edge cooling technologies in Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Italy.

Beginning with the title, the term solution is meant to call this adaptation paradigm into question. The project examines the phenomenon of rising AC demand in its various facets, addressing its numerous shortcomings and drawbacks, as well as the reasons underlying its use, which are often related to the necessity of protecting the most fragile members of society from health hazards. It is within this context that. According to the report of the International Environmental Agency, “The Future of Cooling”, published in 2018, 10 new AC units will be sold every second for the next 30 years, bringing the number of installed cooling units worldwide to 5.6 billion by 2050.

The Cooling Solution combines scientific research, photography, and storytelling to investigate people’s lived experiences as they deal with thermal discomfort in Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Italy. The project brings together the scientific results  of the 5-year-long European research project ENERGYA with personal stories about everyday strategies to cope with heat, as influenced by socioeconomic conditions, demographics, urbanization, and culture. The goal is to use photography’s communicative power to make academic knowledge accessible to the wider public.

As AC becomes cheaper and more efficient, it may end up being used in places where heat stress could instead be adequately tackled by passive cooling solutions. As a result, humanity is facing the risk of being trapped in a new, vicious cycle created by consolidated behaviors and urban environments shaped by the ubiquity of AC. It is now clear that the era of energy-intensive material comfort must come to an end. What is perhaps less clear is that sacrificing this way of living doesn’t mean sacrificing thermal comfort, a concept whose parameters are determined not only by climate, but also by habits, culture, and society.

This exhibition is a journey through human experiences in Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Italy that focuses on cases of hyper cooling, heat dumping, lack of cooling, traditional cooling and cutting-edge technologies. While these countries, however different, are following a similar trend driving them towards a homogenized notion of thermal comfort, The Cooling Solution also examines vernacular architecture, alternative cooling methods, innovation, and dedicated research efforts. No doubt we will live on a warmer planet, and no doubt AC can and will save lives. However, there is also a great richness in the diversity of cooling methods available that are waiting to be re-discovered, re-visited, and scaled-up.

A family sits in a first class air-conditioned car on a train that goes from Tegal to Yogyakarta, Java. Indonesia, 2022 – Humidity 80%, 25°C. Photo by Gaia Squarci

FACTSHEET

The Cooling Solution

Photographic exhibition  May 19 – July 31, 2023

Photography by Gaia Squarci, research by the ENERGYA team at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, led by prof. Enrica De Cian, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and Fondazione CMCC, curation by Kublaiklan, project coordination by Elementsix.

• Indoors: Ca’ Foscari Zattere – Cultural Flow Zone, Dorsoduro 1392, Venice
• Outdoors: Cortile Grande, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Dorsoduro 3246, Venice

HOURS

Cortile Grande, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
Monday through Friday: 8am-6pm
Saturdays: 8am-1pm
Free entry; June 2nd and 3rd closed for holidays

Tesa 1, Ca’ Foscari Zattere
Monday through Saturday: 10am-6pm

Sunday 3pm-6pm
Free entry; June 2nd and 3rd closed for holidays

PRESS PREVIEW

May 18, 2023, 11AM-6PM

May 19, 2023, 10AM-1PM

• Indoors: Ca’ Foscari Zattere – Cultural Flow Zone, Dorsoduro 1392, Venice
• Outdoors: Cortile Grande, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Dorsoduro 3246, Venice 

To register for the press preview, please write to [email protected]

VERNISSAGE

May 19, 2023 – 5pm – Cortile Grande, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Dorsoduro 3246

Introduction by Cristina Baldacci from THE NEW INSTITUTE Centre for Environmental Humanities, followed by a guided tour of the Zattere Cultural Flow Zone by photographer Gaia Squarci, scientific coordinator Enrica De Cian, curatorship Kublaiklan, and project coordinator Elementsix.

To register for the vernissage, please fill in this form

SCIENTIFIC WORKSHOP

May 19  2023, 9 am, Aula Baratto, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Dorsoduro 3246, Venice

On the morning of May 19, 2023, a scientific workshop will take place in the historic Aula Baratto of the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, where renowned international experts will discuss the expected boom in air conditioning adoption over the next 20 years, together with some of the possible alternatives.

To register for the workshop, fill out the form

SPONSORS

The exhibition, curated by Kublaiklan, would not have been possible without the economic research led by Enrica De Cian and her ENERGYA team, the ethnographic research conducted by Antonella Mazzone, the policy research carried out by Marinella Davide, and the photography of Gaia Squarci, all of which were coordinated by Elementsix.

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Grant agreement No 756194), and has received contributions from the Fondazione CMCC and the ACTION Marie Curie project led by Marinella Davide (grant agreement No 841291). It is jointly organized by the Department of Economics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and THE NEW INSTITUTE Centre for Environmental Humanities.

WEBSITE AND CATALOG

The project will also be available for consultation at thecoolingsolution.com, a custom website launching on May 19, 2023, where it will also be possible to buy a paper version of the catalog.

TEAM

The exhibition and catalog, curated by Kublaiklan, would not have been possible without the economic research led by Enrica De Cian and her ENERGYA team, the ethnographic research conducted by Antonella Mazzone, the policy research carried out by Marinella Davide, and the photographic reportage by Gaia Squarci, all of which were coordinated by Elementsix.

BIOGRAPHIES

→ Gaia Squarci is a photographer and videographer who divides her time between Milan and New York City, where she teaches Digital Storytelling at ICP. Gaia is an IWMF fellow and a National Geographic grantee, as well as a contributor for Prospekt. With a background in art history and photojournalism, she leans towards a personal approach that distances itself from the descriptive narrative tradition in documentary photography and video. Her work focuses on themes linked to the relationship between human beings and the environment, disability, aging, and family relationships.

→ Kublaiklan is a curatorial collective that explores widely accessible ways of interacting with photography by designing exhibitions and educational projects for non-profit organizations, institutions, and individuals. At the same time, it investigates contemporary visual culture through research projects aimed at building awareness and promoting a conscious use of photography as a language.

→ Enrica De Cian is a professor of environmental economics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Department of Economics, and a research scientist at the Fondazione Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici and at the European Institute on Economics and the Environment. She is a member of the scientific committee at the New Institute Center for Environmental Humanities, and is the recipient of an ERC Starting Grant for the project ENERGYA (“Energy use for Adaptation”), the results of which will be summarized during the exhibition. At Ca’ Foscari, she also coordinates the PhD in Science and Management of Climate Change.

→ Antonella Mazzone is a research associate at the Centre for the Environment (University of Oxford) and a fellow at Oxford Martin School. With a background in humanities and social science, her current work focuses on the interplay between gender, cultures, and indigenous knowledge in energy studies.

→ Elementsix is an agency specialized in research dissemination and in providing services to academics from diverse fields. Elementsix and Gaia Squarci supervised the curation of the photographic shoots and associated stories, and coordinated, together with Enrica De Cian, the scientific writing for the exhibition and the catalog.