The butterfly effect

Senaka Senanayake paints Sri Lanka's rainforests in their calm and chaos, where every creature's wingbeat hints at nature's fragile chain reactions

- SALONIKA MEATTLE AGGARWAL

Around the world, artists have been using their practice to highlight the effects of the climate emergency. In 1982, Hungarian-American artist Agnes Denes grew wheat in a 2.2 acre landfill in New York's overcrowded, industrialised, financial sector. As it reached harvest, she distributed the grain across 28 cities, with an exhibition titled The International Art Show for the End of World Hunger, and encouraged audiences to plant the seeds.

In 2014, Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson transported giant blocks of ice from Greenland, and placed them outside Copenhagen's City Hall to allow city folks to engage with melting glaciers firsthand. Other artists have painted dramatic apocalypses, recorded calls of endangered birds, or hung up their nation's flag dulled by pollution.