Cape Farewell North America

Quick Links

Main content
Main navigation
Site search

Why We Do It

Cape Farewell Foundation sees a need to bring together the evidence-based approach of scientists with cultural investigations to enact social change. An artist's perspective can provide meaningful context to the complexity of science. Cape Farewell's approach conveys a solutions-based narrative by bringing a human and emotional dimension to climate change.

"Cape Farewell, a wedding of art and science, to heal the earth's divorce."
Yann Martel, writer, Cape Farewell 2009 Andes Expedition

"The pressure of our numbers, the abundance of our inventions, the blind forces of our desires and needs are generating a heat – the hot breath of our civilization. We are fouling our nest, and we know we must act decisively, against our immediate inclinations."
Ian McEwan, novelist, Cape Farewell 2005 Art/Science Expedition

"It is too early to say whether Cape Farewell’s activity foreshadows a shift in the artist’s role in society. It is clear, though, that a cultural response is essential to address the problems facing our overheating planet."
David Buckland, Cape Farewell founder/Cape Farewell Foundation Director

"The core beliefs of what constitutes a good life, from passive consumers to active agents in the making of a humanly involved planetary future, is a cultural shape-shifting exercise of urgent and universal importance."
Antony Gormley, Sculptor, Cape Farewell 2005 Art/Science Expedition