Eco Social Realism

Eco-Social Realism Exhibitions are presented Across Five Philadelphia-Area Venues,
Bringing Art and the Environment Into Active Conversation
GLASSBORO, NJ (NOVEMBER 6, 2026): Rowan University Museum of Contemporary Art is one of five venues presenting Eco-Social Realism exhibitions on view now through December 19th, 2026. Curated by Daniel Tucker Eco-Social Realism at RUMOCA Features works by Paper Buck, Carolina Caycedo, Federico Cuatlacuatl, Alicia Grullón, Aislinn Pentecost-Farren and Karyn Olivier. Eco-Social Realism asks an important question: If climate change is also a crisis of imagination, as writer Amitav Ghosh suggests, how can artists and media makers help us better understand, experience, and care for the places where we live? (Ghosh, 2016) The artwork in this exhibition explores real places in Mexico, Colombia, and the United States. Using paintings, video, and sculpture artists challenge the political borders that shape how we understand these places. Eco-Social Realism explores infrastructure and areas defined by its natural environment and ecological connections, such as shared rivers, watersheds, forests, wildlife, and climate patterns, rather than by political borders alone. These connections referred to bioregionalism often cross state and national boundaries, linking communities through shared resources and environmental challenges. The artworks make these relationships visible, showing how the causes of the climate crisis and possible solutions extend across the places and ecosystems we share.