01:31
Zaria Forman Highlight
Zaria Forman
Artist & Climate Change Activist
I'm trying to encourage people with positivity and hope. If you fall in love with something, you want to protect it.
About Zaria
- Her mother was a landscape photographer, and each summer, they’d spend one month traveling.
- Her mom taught her artistic principles that Zaria still uses today, like how to set up a shot with an interesting composition, and how to follow and best make use of the light.
- Years before climate change had become a huge topic of discussion, her family traveled to Greenland, where they got to see the effects of global warming up close.
- She realized that she wanted to focus her work on amplifying people’s understanding of these issues.
- She and her mother started planning a second excursion to Greenland, but before they could make the trip, her mom was diagnosed with brain cancer and passed away six months later.
- She decided to follow through on her mother’s vision, and took the trip to Greenland with a group of artists and scientists.
- After that journey, she started making the giant pastel drawings of ice that she’s become well-known for.
- Believes that when people read about climate change, they have a hard time empathizing, but when they see it depicted in her large-scale paintings, they’re more moved and inspired to act.