Boston and New YorkBoston and NY

Remembering Climate Futures

Climate change is a global process, but we experience and respond to it in profoundly local ways. Join us to explore creative projects bringing abstract climate projections into the places we inhabit.

Climate change can feel all too remote — we measure it over vast distances and timescales, often disconnected from the particular geographical, social, and ecological settings we inhabit. To inspire action, we need to connect global projections to local contexts. But how can we make abstract data feel concrete and close to home?

Memoria di un Clima Futuro Svizzero is a site-specific installation in Ticino, Switzerland, which reimagines historical markers as memorials to a speculative climate future, grounded in local data and realistic projections. A series of plaques in public spaces around the town of Porza commemorate future climate events — heatwaves, droughts, floods — as well as the measures that the community takes to adapt. Developed by Jacopo Conti and IAMCLIMATE, the project adapts and expands upon Remembrance of Climate Futures, a series of Boston-area installations initiated by Prof. Thomas Starr of Northeastern University.

Join Swissnex for an interactive conversation on design and place-based climate communication. Conti and Starr will be joined by Prof. Juliette Rooney-Varga, professor of Environmental Science at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and director of the university’s Climate Change Initiative, and Rachel TonThat, a Salem-based interdisciplinary artist, writer, and editor of Impermanent Earth, a digital archive documenting how spaces are transformed by climate change. Together they will explore how we can bridge the gap between abstract data and everyday life and inspire climate action in our communities.

Program

  • 5:30pm – Doors Open
  • 6:00pm – Opening Remarks
  • 6:05pm – Introduction to Memoria di un Clima Futuro by Jacopo Conti
  • 6:15pm – Panel Discussion
  • 6:45pm – Workshop
  • 7:00pm – Conclusions
  • 7:15pm – Networking
  • 8:00pm – End
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Event start time

  • Boston

    5:30PM

Speakers

  •

    Bio

    Jacopo Conti

    PhD student,
    Northeastern University

    Jacopo Conti is a PhD student in Network Science at Northeastern University’s Network Science Institute (NetSI), where his research sits at the meeting point of complex systems and art. Trained in Philosophy and Art History at the University of Lausanne, he holds an MFA in Information Design and Data Visualization from Northeastern. He has worked at the Barabási Lab and MIT Senseable City Lab. He is co-founder and COO of IAMCLIMATE, a Ticino-based environmental non-profit, and leads Memories of Swiss Climate Future, a public memorial project that brings climate data into the landscape.

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    Bio

    Thomas Starr

    Professor of Graphic and Information Design,
    Northeastern University

    Thomas Starr is Professor of Graphic and Information Design in the Department of Art + Design at Northeastern University. His work explores the role of visual communication in civic, social, and political discourse, addressing issues including climate change, reproductive rights, and gun violence. Through design, writing, and curating, he examines the intersection of graphic design, public engagement, and freedom of speech. His internationally recognized work has been exhibited and published worldwide, with designs held in the collections of the Zurich Design Museum and the Library of Congress.

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    Bio

    Rachel TonThat

    Interdisciplinary Artist

    Rachel TonThat is an interdisciplinary artist and writer exploring climate change, technological futures, and collective memory through narrative structures and constructed space. Both narrative and space as placemaking are used in her work for community building and social justice in ongoing projects like Oreades Press, an environmental storytelling and publishing project, Airtight Garage, a pop up art space in her home in Salem, MA, and the North Shore AAPI Coalition which she co-founded in 2024. A graduate of Zurich University of the Arts, she is the co-author of Die Alp an sich, a book translations and retellings of folklore from the Sarganserland.

     

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    Bio

    Juliette Nicole Rooney-Varga

    Professor of Environmental Science,
    University of Massachusetts Lowell

    Juliette Rooney-Varga is a professor of Environmental Science at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where she directs the Climate Change Initiative and co-directs the Rist Institute for Sustainability and Energy. Her work focuses on translating climate change and sustainability science into actionable societal understanding. By developing and implementing dynamic modeling and interactive simulators, she enables students, citizens, and leaders across government, business, and academia to experience and learn about climate and energy systems firsthand. Her contributions to the field were recognized with the 2026 Jay W. Forrester Award from the System Dynamics Society. 

    She holds a Ph.D. from the University of New Hampshire, an MS from Cornell University, and a BA from Colby College.