New art exhibit opens at Rose Kennedy Greenway

This piece has a tight focus on the devastating and often inequitable effects of global warming, even caused by the greenway itself.

A new public art exhibit is coming to the Boston area, with a focus on the climate crisis.

An exhibit titled SONG/LAND/SEA: WAI Water Warning & Binakol Blessing by interdisciplinary artist Lani Asunción will be coming to the Rose Kennedy Greenway, with an opening Thursday, July 25, from 6-8:30 p.m.

This piece has a tight focus on the devastating and often inequitable effects of global warming, even caused by the greenway itself.

The artist’s statement names the construction of the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway in the 1950s and the Big Dig from 1991 to 2006, which constructed the Greenway, as forces of displacement and gentrification that further burdened Chinatown, Roxbury, and Dorchester with the effects of urban heat islands.

“This work implores viewers to confront the realities of climate change and mobilize toward collective resilience and justice,” reads the artist’s statement from her website. “Climate change is not a distant threat but an urgent reality, exacerbating existing inequalities and disproportionately impacting marginalized communities.”

WAI Water Clock, part of the exhibit, is a standing sculpture made from cement, brass, rope and steel, according to the Greenway’s website. Binakol Blessing Banners + Flags, part of the coming installation, are images made digitally by the artist and printed onto four towering flags and twelve 15-foot-tall banners.

A central concept of this work is related to Wai, or “water.”

“Foundational to Hawaiian culture, wai sits at the root of many words associated with value and importance, such as waiwai, which means both ‘wealth’ and ‘life force.’ Asunción calls our attention to wai as a warning, a healing blessing, and as a call to action toward the changes brought by the climate crisis,” reads a statement about the exhibit.