The Climate Crisis is the biggest threat to life on this planet. But the general public is often paralyzed by dire projections, and individuals feel incapable of making meaningful change. Undercurrent challenges that inaction through artistic inspiration. We developed a culture-centered way into the conversation, working with contemporary musicians and installation artists to inspire a mindset shift in Gen Z and millennial audiences. Undercurrent featured 60,000 square feet of interactive, climate-focused installations from 11 musicians, each driving awareness to an environmental nonprofit partner.

The goal was to engage visitors around these massive themes, and to push them to take action through art. For each artist’s experience we collaboratively designed and built a bespoke installation and program around their message, using creative technologies, music and design. Our belief is that these immersive means of artistic expression are more impactful than simply reading cold statistics.

After over three years of planning and development, Undercurrent opened its doors in Brooklyn, New York for the inaugural exhibition in September 2021. The immersive audiovisual experience featured over 60,000 square feet of interactive installations by some of today’s most exciting musicians including Bon Iver, Grimes, Jorja Smith, Khruangbin, Miguel, The 1975, Actress, Aluna, Jayda G, Mount Kimbie, and Nosaj Thing. Each installation was designed by the musician to inspire positive impact around the Climate Crisis and drive to one of our climate-focused nonprofit partners: Kiss The Ground, Ocean Conservancy, and Global Forest Generation. Over the course of its run in New York, the exhibit drew thousands of visitors who left inspired to get involved in environmental activism.

We built our platform that empowers artists to inspire action from their audiences; and in the process has created a new format for them to use their music and voice to make space for meaningful conversation and positive impact around critical social and environmental issues. We believe strongly in art’s power to enact social change. Offering this platform to artists is a way to impact audiences and drive conversation in an unexpected, inspiring, and uplifting way. Undercurrent provides artists with the resources and technology to use their sonic and visual storytelling to challenge climate inaction through inspiration and immersive experience.

A few examples — Jorja Smith wanted to focus on the displacement of island communities due to beach rubbish coming from North America. Our collaborative execution aimed to shine a spotlight on the issue, and her installation included hundreds of bottles collected from two beach cleanups, to create a winding maze-like experience which increased in temperature as visitors proceed through the experience. The guests hear original music from Jorja spatialized and layered with voice recordings from her family in the islands speaking of their displacement. Miguel’s installation covered the topic of bleached coral, and the installation features a bleached coral forest, sculpted using recycled plastic, and projection mapped upon when visitors triggered various motion capture cameras attached to spatialized audio monitors playing an original soundscape from Miguel. These are a few examples of the hyper-nuanced and bespoke musical approaches taken to each piece.

During its run in Brooklyn, Undercurrent saw thousands of visitors through the immersive audiovisual physical exhibition, and upwards of 176,000 website & social channel visitors, engaging actively in the programs installations and experiences. A total of 11 new original pieces of music were created with the artists, ranging in format from spatialized audio experiences, to generative soundscapes, and motion-reactive composition. Through the use of this music in context of the program, Undercurrent drove $30,000 in donations to its core impact partners, and delivered on its mission to drive mindset shift through music. Similarly, the music went on to extend the reach and impact of the Undercurrent program and throughout the run the social and impact campaign drove 1.06B earned media impressions which consisted of premier press articles, and influential changemakers and thought leaders posting positively about the program and the underlying model of art-for-impact.