By its very nature attentive to the various expressions of human creativity, MUSEC reserves six months of its programming for the exhibition ‘Man and Climate’, which opens the multi-site Festival of the same name. Curated by Gianluca Bonetti and Nora Segreto, the exhibition finds its reason for being in the awareness of the intimate relationship that art has historically had with the evolution of ecosystems and the landscape.

The MUSEC exhibition explores some particularly significant moments related to climate change that have marked human history. A journey back in time is thus proposed, leading from the current phase of global warming to the last ice age (between 110,000 and 11,700 years ago), i.e. the climatic period that saw the cognitive maturation of our species.

In the five rooms on the top floor of Villa Malpensata, it is the works of art that speak, selected as material expressions of the close relationship between mankind and the natural environments transformed by climate change. Since its origin, in fact, art has been configured as an exploration of both the external world and the inner dimension, in a journey expressed through symbols. Science stems from the same evolutionary process and shares with art the human capacity and need to elaborate abstract thought in order to represent reality, even in its most complex and sometimes invisible aspects. Art and science, after all, are two manifestations of the same culture, the human culture, of which the exhibition documents some manifestations, going back as far as the time of the mammoths. 

The section in the exhibition: ‘The Last Ice Age. The birth of creativity', leads up to the first artistic manifestations ofhomo sapiens. The climatic conditions at the time favoured the spread of mammoths, bison, horses, reindeer and lions, a fauna that we find in part in the carved ivory figurines in the Museum of the University of Tübingen. These include a precious depiction of a big cat dating back over 40,000 years and presented for the first time in its entirety at MUSEC.

Accompanying the exhibition are three volumes from the MUSEC's Anthropunti series (Edizioni Fondazione culture e musei, Lugano):

• L'Uomo e il Clima, vol. 1 Una storia, by Gianluca Bonetti with the collaboration of Cristian Scapozza;
• L'Uomo e il Clima, vol. 2 Alcune chiavi di lettura per il futuro, edited by Gianluca Bonetti and Cristian Scapozza;
• L'Uomo e il Clima, vol. 3 Catalogue of works, by Nora Segreto.

Interweaving anthropology, earth sciences, natural sciences, art, cinema and photography, the multi-site Festival ‘Man and the Climate’ aims to provide an overview of the complex issue of climate change. In addition to the MUSEC, the Festival involves seven associations and institutions active in the Lugano area that propose events scheduled in Lugano between November 2024 and May 2025. Based on an idea by Gianluca Bonetti, the initiative is organised and coordinated by the Association of the same name, with the collaboration of Clara Caverzasio of the Trame Association and the scientific accompaniment of Cristian Scapozza, head of the Climate Change and Territory Competence Centre of SUPSI-Scuola universitaria professionale della Svizzera italiana (Department of Environment, Construction and Design).

www.uomoeclima.org