Exhibition Tour: COAL + ICE at the Asia Society

Join us at the Asia Society Museum for a private tour of COAL + ICE, an immersive photography and video exhibition. COAL + ICE visualizes the causes and consequences of the climate crisis and foregrounds creative solutions.

The exhibition is co-curated by Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas and international exhibition designer Jeroen de Vries, and led by Orville Schell, Asia Society Vice President, and Arthur Ross, Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations.

COAL + ICE was born about 20 years ago when I went up with my family, who were at school in Beijing, to Datong. We thought we were going to see the Buddhist Grottoes, instead we saw coal country,” says Orville Schell. “Coal country in China is pretty staggeringly dirty, depressing, but it is the heart and soul of everything that has fueled China’s economic revival. From that moment on, I realized that coal was a critical element in the whole climate proposition.”

In 2011, COAL + ICE premiered in Beijing, featuring the works of over 30 contributors. The New Yorker wrote on the exhibition’s debut: “It seeks to do something unprecedented: to chart the horrific grandeur of our effects on the planet, from the coal mines beneath our feet to the dwindling glaciers on our highest mountains.” COAL + ICE has since been shown in Yixian, Shanghai, Paris, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. 

Tour Guide:
Claudia Klinck, Program Coordinator, COAL + ICE