Uploaded February 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Timestamps:
00:00-03:04 Introduction
03:05-01:06:17 When home is next to an oil refinery: Adam Mahoney with Alicia Rivera
1:06:18-2:07:58 How can cities be solutions to climate change?: Karen Seto
2:07:59-2:22:09 MOCA Teens
2:22:10-3:19:57 Being Kuuyam: Carolina Cayceo with Daniela Lieja Quintanar
3:19:58-4:21:48 Black Girl Environmentalist Roundtable: T’Essence Minnitee, Nicole Steele, and Ki’Amber Thompson
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The MOCA Climate Conversations series seeks to create a space for collective learning and dialogue, providing a platform for engaging with pressing topics, fostering awareness, and inspiring action around the diverse facets of climate, culture, and environmental justice.
Session One: Beyond Awareness: Mobilizing Cities for Climate Change
When home is next to an oil refinery
Speakers: Adam Mahoney, Alicia Rivera
Sitting 15 miles South of Downtown, Los Angeles' Wilmington neighborhood is invisible by design. The community, which is 96% non-white, is home to the largest concentration of oil production west of Texas. While the neighborhood, the oil beneath it, and the port that butts against it keep the nation's second-largest city running, Wilmington residents receive cancer diagnoses at a rate three times higher than the U.S. average. In this presentation, environmental justice reporter Adam Mahoney, who moved to the community when he was six, explains how U.S. cities survive by sacrificing their most marginalized. A short Q&A with Wilmington-based environmental organizer Alicia Rivera will follow.
How can cities be solutions to climate change?
Speakers: Karen Seto
Cities are at the frontlines of climate change impacts such as heatwaves, flash floods, and power outages. Today, 1.6 billion people are exposed to extreme urban heat. By 2100, this number is expected to increase to 7.6 billion. Within cities, heat exposure is unequally distributed and most severely impacts the urban poor, historically redlined neighborhoods, and communities of color. Not only are cities vulnerable to climate change, but they are also major drivers of climate change. Cities generate approximately 75% of global greenhouse emissions and their share of global emissions will increase due to trends in urban population and infrastructure growth. Between now and 2050, the world will add another 2.5 billion people to cities. If we are to limit global warming, cities must play a critical role in mitigating climate change. In this talk, Karen Seto discusses how cities can build resilience and be part of the solution to climate change.
Session Two: Resilience and Resistance: Developing Communities of Care
MOCA Teens Activation
The MOCA Teens will share about two artist-led workshops this Fall that centered on environmental justice, ecology, and sustainability including zine-making with comic artist Aidan Koch and participation in Procession, a walking performance initiated by artists Debra Scacco and Joel Garcia. The MOCA Teen Program brings high school juniors and seniors behind the scenes to learn about the museum, contemporary art, artists, and other creative careers. The program is an academic-year-long, paid position teaching teens about the work of the museum by directly involving them in it.
Being Kuuyam
Speakers: Carolina Caycedo, Daniela Lieja Quintanar
How do kuuyam, or “guests” in the Tongva language, engage in practices of land acknowledgment, reciprocity, and care? What are the protocols for being a visitor and guest in unceded Tongva land? Embracing resistance and solidarity with native land protectors and stewards, this conversation will explore creativity and the connection to the land through the lens of what it means to be kuuyam. Artist Carolina Caycedo will be in conversation with curator Daniela Lieja Quintanar, exploring the link between art, environment, community, and belonging.
Creating Communities: A Black Girl Environmentalist Roundtable
Speakers: T’Essence Minnitee, Nicole Steele, Ki’Amber Thompson
Women experience climate change with disproportionate severity because enforced gender inequality makes them more susceptible to escalating environmental stresses. Countless studies demonstrate that Black girls, women, and gender-expansive people are among the last to recover during times of environmental crisis and the least supported in the green workforce. Members of the national capacity-building organization Black Girl Environmentalist will discuss building communities of care and a more diverse climate movement.
Part of MOCA’s environmental programming, MOCA Climate Conversations are organized by Kelsey Shell, Environmental and Sustainability Strategist, with Alitzah Oros, Public Programming Associate, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
The 2023 MOCA Climate Conversations are made possible by Nora McNeely Hurley and Manitou Fund.
Timestamps:
00:00-03:04 Introduction
03:05-01:06:17 When home is next to an oil refinery: Adam Mahoney with Alicia Rivera
1:06:18-2:07:58 How can cities be solutions to climate change?: Karen Seto
2:07:59-2:22:09 MOCA Teens
2:22:10-3:19:57 Being Kuuyam: Carolina Cayceo with Daniela Lieja Quintanar
3:19:58-4:21:48 Black Girl Environmentalist Roundtable: T’Essence Minnitee, Nicole Steele, and Ki’Amber Thompson
_
The MOCA Climate Conversations series seeks to create a space for collective learning and dialogue, providing a platform for engaging with pressing topics, fostering awareness, and inspiring action around the diverse facets of climate, culture, and environmental justice.
Session One: Beyond Awareness: Mobilizing Cities for Climate Change
When home is next to an oil refinery
Speakers: Adam Mahoney, Alicia Rivera
Sitting 15 miles South of Downtown, Los Angeles' Wilmington neighborhood is invisible by design. The community, which is 96% non-white, is home to the largest concentration of oil production west of Texas. While the neighborhood, the oil beneath it, and the port that butts against it keep the nation's second-largest city running, Wilmington residents receive cancer diagnoses at a rate three times higher than the U.S. average. In this presentation, environmental justice reporter Adam Mahoney, who moved to the community when he was six, explains how U.S. cities survive by sacrificing their most marginalized. A short Q&A with Wilmington-based environmental organizer Alicia Rivera will follow.
How can cities be solutions to climate change?
Speakers: Karen Seto
Cities are at the frontlines of climate change impacts such as heatwaves, flash floods, and power outages. Today, 1.6 billion people are exposed to extreme urban heat. By 2100, this number is expected to increase to 7.6 billion. Within cities, heat exposure is unequally distributed and most severely impacts the urban poor, historically redlined neighborhoods, and communities of color. Not only are cities vulnerable to climate change, but they are also major drivers of climate change. Cities generate approximately 75% of global greenhouse emissions and their share of global emissions will increase due to trends in urban population and infrastructure growth. Between now and 2050, the world will add another 2.5 billion people to cities. If we are to limit global warming, cities must play a critical role in mitigating climate change. In this talk, Karen Seto discusses how cities can build resilience and be part of the solution to climate change.
Session Two: Resilience and Resistance: Developing Communities of Care
MOCA Teens Activation
The MOCA Teens will share about two artist-led workshops this Fall that centered on environmental justice, ecology, and sustainability including zine-making with comic artist Aidan Koch and participation in Procession, a walking performance initiated by artists Debra Scacco and Joel Garcia. The MOCA Teen Program brings high school juniors and seniors behind the scenes to learn about the museum, contemporary art, artists, and other creative careers. The program is an academic-year-long, paid position teaching teens about the work of the museum by directly involving them in it.
Being Kuuyam
Speakers: Carolina Caycedo, Daniela Lieja Quintanar
How do kuuyam, or “guests” in the Tongva language, engage in practices of land acknowledgment, reciprocity, and care? What are the protocols for being a visitor and guest in unceded Tongva land? Embracing resistance and solidarity with native land protectors and stewards, this conversation will explore creativity and the connection to the land through the lens of what it means to be kuuyam. Artist Carolina Caycedo will be in conversation with curator Daniela Lieja Quintanar, exploring the link between art, environment, community, and belonging.
Creating Communities: A Black Girl Environmentalist Roundtable
Speakers: T’Essence Minnitee, Nicole Steele, Ki’Amber Thompson
Women experience climate change with disproportionate severity because enforced gender inequality makes them more susceptible to escalating environmental stresses. Countless studies demonstrate that Black girls, women, and gender-expansive people are among the last to recover during times of environmental crisis and the least supported in the green workforce. Members of the national capacity-building organization Black Girl Environmentalist will discuss building communities of care and a more diverse climate movement.
Part of MOCA’s environmental programming, MOCA Climate Conversations are organized by Kelsey Shell, Environmental and Sustainability Strategist, with Alitzah Oros, Public Programming Associate, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
The 2023 MOCA Climate Conversations are made possible by Nora McNeely Hurley and Manitou Fund.
