Workshop: Climate Forward Institutions
Date and Time
Location
Counterpublic Carriage House
3733 Washington Ave
About the Workshop
A private workshop kicking off the Coyote Time Convening: Climate Futures and Infrastructural Imaginaries.
This intimate workshop for arts organizations and cultural leaders will explore how climate action can transform arts institutions, ranging from immediate, practical change to long-term, generational vision. Led by Laura Lupton of Field Forms, James Merle Thomas of the Frankenthaler Climate Initiative (FCI), and Counterpublic, the day will begin with tactical strategies for implementing change now, featuring St. Louis FCI x Counterpublic cluster grantees sharing their experiences and entry points for action. The second half will turn toward the future, inviting participants to imagine pathways, solutions, and new models for arts organizations shaped by climate action and collective transformation.
The workshop is part of Counterpublic 2026: Coyote Time and our three-day Climate Convening, which brings together artists, writers, organizers, designers, scientists, cultural leaders, and community practitioners to explore climate as a lived reality and exhibitions as opportunities for worldbuilding.
About the Frankenthaler Climate Initiative
Registration for this workshop is closed. To be added to the waitlist, reach out to Kristin Fleischmann Brewer at kfbrewer@counterpublic.org.
Registration
Waitlist for the Workshop: Climate Forward Institutions
Registration is full. Join the waitlist and we’ll contact you if a place becomes available. Joining the waitlist does not confirm registration.
Convening Support
The Coyote Time Convening is supported by the Frankenthaler Climate Initiative, established by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation.
The Climate Forward Institutions Workshop directly supports Counterpublic’s Climate Impact Plan. Learn more here.
This year, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation awarded The Luminary, G-CADD: Granite City Art + Design District, The Griot Museum of Black History, and the National Building Arts Center funds to lower their carbon impacts across their campuses. In addition, the Foundation awarded Counterpublic a grant to support our work with Laura Lupton of Field Forms to implement our climate action plan with a long-term vision toward mitigation, adaptation, and resilience and creating a model for biennials, triennials and other large-scale exhibitions to account for their climate impacts.
The Frankenthaler Climate Initiative is the first nationwide program to support energy efficiency and clean energy use for the visual arts and the largest private national grantmaking program to address climate action through cultural institutions. The ongoing initiative provides critical support to visual arts organizations in the United States seeking to assess their impact on the environment and to lower ongoing energy costs. The Foundation has conferred more than $21.8 million since its launch in 2021, with 401 unique grants given for energy efficiency and clean energy projects at 295 institutions across 42 states and Puerto Rico.