Bureaucratic Taxidermy

Shredded Climate Agreements
Recycled Paper, Laser-engraved
Acrylic “Archival” Box, Laser-engraved

Global climate agreements are shown here in tatters, symbolizing the U.S. government’s failure to honor its commitments to sustainable climate action—most notably, the Paris Climate Accord, which President Trump has threatened to abandon for a second time just shortly after the hottest year on record (2024). These shredded documents stand as bureaucratic taxidermy—the hollow display of progress that conceals our broken promises to the world.

Artifacts of language and data tables from the climate agreements remain as traces within the recycled paper material. As the remnants are repurposed and made new again, they offer old failures a second life—even if it is fragile and uncertain. Words by Ian McEwan from The Hot Breath of Civilization are laser-engraved into the surface of the paper: the burn of the laser calling back to the rapid heating of the earth. Adjacent to McEwan’s words are ‘1.5°C... 2°C... 3°C?’  the proposed limit to the increase in global average temperature in the Paris Agreement. As of 2025 we are currently at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, which is the original limit noted in the Paris Climate Accord.

RISD
Spring 2025   
Advised by Bethany Johns