Uncertain futures: coral bleaching and the loss of innocence, beauty and the sublime

The works of art in the exhibition Exodus: Coral Bleaching and Heat Stress call attention to habitat degradation due to climate change. Cyclones and bleaching events have resulted in the loss of fifty percent of the coral cover in the Great Barrier Reef over the past three decades. The capacity for art to secure belief through reflective understanding is argued in relation to the moral predicament of anthropogenic climate change. The sublime is recast in the form of the eco-sublime, allowing for new ways of feeling and imaging our place in a world where our innocence in relation to climate change has been lost