Six musicians wear overalls and play haunting music from their vantage point, high on a scaffold. Below them, a screen shows an oil drilling rig in action in front of a canvas pool, representing the ponds where the water required for fracking is stored.
This unusual diorama is part of Geonnitus, an artistic and audiovisual installation which aims to bring to life Vaca Muerta, the largest unconventional oil and gas field in Argentina, and one of the biggest in the world.
Art has taken inspiration from nature since time immemorial: an 11,000-year-old mural depicting a volcano in Çatalhöyük, in modern day Turkey, is believed to be the world’s oldest landscape painting.
As the scale of the climate crisis becomes overwhelming, a growing movement of Latin American artists are using their work to wrest back a sense of control. Geonnitus was displayed in March at the Teatro Colón Experimentation Centre in Buenos Aires. It exemplifies that movement which asks: can humans translate what we are doing to nature into powerful art?
From the heart of the oil industry in Patagonia
Geonnitus was conceived and produced by Project ECO ECO, a journalism and art collective.
While trombones, horns, a tuba and percussion instruments represent the noise and chaos of extractive industries, the installation blends these realities with sounds of nature and the local population: the Patagonian wind, goats, birds, the creaking of a hammock, the music listened to by those working in the area.
The project’s name refers to the “noises that deafen the Earth”, according to the programme, as well as “the tinnitus from which our planet suffers”.
“It is almost a requiem for the Earth,” says Marina Aizen, a journalist and central figure in the project.
Over the past 15 years, Vaca Muerta has occupied a central place in public debate in Argentina. Its supporters highlight its potential to drive economic growth and create jobs. Critics point to the environmental impacts of hydrocarbon extraction, earthquakes associated with fracking, and the need to transition to renewable energy.
Geonnitus was born from these debates, Aizen says. “The idea of showcasing the impact of fracking through art emerged as a way to distance ourselves from the narratives set by the press, the industry and even NGOs,” she adds. “To try to develop our own language that can convey the effects of unconventional hydrocarbon extraction.”
The challenge was considerable: to draw viewers into the world of hydraulic fracturing in a remote corner of Argentine Patagonia. “Geonnitus adds a dimension of landscape, damage, noise and atmosphere that no discourse or written or spoken word can achieve on its own,” says Aizen.
The makers of Petróleo, a play by the Argentine collective Piel de Lava, approached a similar challenge in a different way, focusing on the gender dynamics of the oil industry. This, the artistic group’s fifth production, premiered in 2018 and ran until 2024, before returning for another, limited run in 2025.
The plot centres on four oil workers living together in a trailer, metres from a well in Patagonia. Loneliness, the wind, the uncertainty of whether there are more resources to be extracted are key themes, but also the humour that comes from living in these circumstances.
In this case, the starting point was not hydrocarbons, but the desire to challenge certain gender stereotypes. “The idea of oil came later, because we wanted a world that was purely masculine, and in the world of oil there are no women,” one of the show’s stars Pilar Gamboa, previously said.
Creating from destruction in Brazil
In Brazil, the self-styled ‘artivist’ Mundano says his environmental work stems from a feeling of powerlessness over the crisis. “In the midst of this climate crisis we are experiencing, it is impossible not to feel anxious,” he says. “That is why I place such importance on art, which is where I manage to feel less powerless and give free rein to my anxieties about our future.”
His work aims to create from destruction. He paints with ash from Amazonian forest fires, oil spilled on beaches and mud collected after floods in southern Brazil.
The documentary film Cinzas da Floresta (Ashes of the Forest) follows Mundano as he travels across Brazil collecting ash from forest fires. The result is a whole-building mural in São Paulo depicting a volunteer firefighter, O brigadista de floresta.
The film inspired a festival showcasing works by various artists using the same techniques, which took up residency during the COP30 climate conference in the Amazonian city of Belém last November.
Mundano used the event to call for action. “I have walked through burnt forests, and the sadness that hangs in the air there is profound. That is why, over the past four years, I have been carrying this ash as a call to turn burnt forests into standing forests,” he said.
Art, energy transition and climate justice in the Caribbean
Climate justice has inspired Latin musicians, too. Artists from five Caribbean countries collaborated on the project Cielo Azul to produce music inspired by a desire for a just transition.
“We want this song to connect through identity and hope, but also to spark an urgent conversation about the Caribbean’s energy future,” says Carolina Sánchez, spokesperson for the Greater Caribbean Fossil-Free Network, a coalition of organisations which worked alongside the Costa Rican record label We Could Be Music. “It’s not just a song; it’s an invitation to imagine and build a different path.”
The artists – from Colombia, Dominican Republic, Bahamas, Jamaica and Honduras – use their region’s unique beauty and biodiversity as a theme in the lyrics: “Let’s not be left with just a photo of how beautiful the Caribbean used to be.”
Against a backdrop of proliferating oil and gas projects in countries such as Guyana and Suriname, and exploration in Honduras, this phrase serves as a warning.
“We are seeing a clear shift: a new generation of artists who aren’t content with just making hits, but who want their music to mean something. Cielo Azul is part of that movement,” explains Mia Paz Cambronero, founder of We Could Be Music.
Collective resistance
Even traditional organisations are turning to art to supplement their work and make the climate case more effectively.
The Chilean environmental law organisation FIMA has launched a call for submissions of visual art and creative writing for a new annual magazine that will address the climate crisis from the intersection of art and legal reflection.
“There is something beautiful in the collective resistance that arises around the crisis,” says Ezio Costa, the organisation’s executive director. “That is where artists intervene with the filters of their observations.”
Back in Argentina, Aizen believes their work casts a new light on the debates over hydrocarbons. “Our project arose from the need to incorporate new languages into the discussion on hydrocarbons,” she says. “Through artistic practices, we are bringing a new way of looking at Vaca Muerta.”
