Zaria Forman’s incredibly moving TEDTalk zeroes in on her art, but more importantly, how she is using it as a tool for climate change activism. Her talk discusses her process, tools, and direct inspirations, including her late mother, a photographer and environmentalist. With travels, passion, and a little bit of pastel (her artworks are composed entirely of pastels), Zaria is able to create huge, intimate works of art directly featuring nature, whether they be foamy, crashing ocean waves or massive icebergs, as she says, “sweating from the unseasonably warm sun.”

Bobby Hundreds, our co-founder, first covered her solo show Slip last year for The Hundreds’ blog. Her visceral, emotional artwork, she says in her TEDTalk below, “[celebrates] the beauty of what we all stand to lose.” She continues, “I hope they can serve as records of sublime landscapes in flux, documenting the transition and inspiring our global community to take action for the future.”

Zaria’s aim, above all, is to get her viewers to feel something. “If you can experience the sublimity of these landscapes, perhaps you’ll be inspired to protect and preserve them.”

View the entirety of Zaria’s TEDTalk below.

Words by Kat Thompson
Photos by Bennet Sell-Kline and Ryan Lash