(upbeat music) - Through programming, advocacy, and collaboration, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art works with artisan communities to build a better world.

The Curator of Exhibitions, Jared Steffensen, is here to tell us about the upcoming exhibit, As the Lake Fades.

Hi, Jared.

- Hello.

- I didn't mean to make that sound sinister (laughs).

- No.

- As the Lake Fades.

So talk about the exhibit.

- Yeah, so the exhibit is looking at climate change through the lens of the lake.

And I think it's one of the, outside of our poor air quality, it's one of the things that becomes really obvious that we can see, even though it seems like a slow decline, it's pretty obvious.

So the artists in the exhibition are looking at water, pollution, forest fires, commodification of water, sort of all avenues to talk about what's happening.

- Which is amazing.

And how many artists are you bringing in for the exhibition?

I mean, are you showing?

- Yeah, we'll have about 15 artists in the exhibition.

I'm trying to finalize a few right now, actually.

But yeah, so there'll be a wide variety from photo to video to sculpture and to painting, yeah.

- So all of it, yeah.

- Yeah.

- And are they mostly from around here where they know all about the lake or?

- Primarily, yes.

I thought it was important to have the people who are experiencing it make the work about it, or be part of the exhibition.

But we do have artists from Houston, from Western Massachusetts, and from California, and Pennsylvania actually in the show as well.

- Wow, wow.

And you're opening?

- On January 26th.

We'll actually be opening a museum-wide exhibition with five shows opening that evening.

Six, actually, sorry.

And it will run through June 1st of next year.

- All right.

And I know it's so important.

I'm sure you're going to do all sorts of talks to go along with that and other collaborations likely.

- Yes, yeah, absolutely.

We're still kind of finalizing what those will be, but please check and follow along and make sure that you can see what we have coming up, yeah.

- Yeah, well, it's an incredibly relevant topic, so I'm glad that the museum is tackling that.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for being here.

- Yeah, thanks for having me.

I appreciate it.

- And if you'd like to know more about that upcoming exhibition at the UMOCA, it's As the Lake Fades, just go to utahmoca.org.

That's utahmoca.org.

I'm Mary Dickson.

Thanks for watching "Contact."

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Hi, I'm Mary Dickson.

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