Event Description: Extreme Weather Survivors is announcing the Stolen Summers tour — a traveling art installation honoring the people, places, and way of life that have been stolen from us by extreme weather.

One of the fastest growing American populations is people harmed by extreme weather. Approximately 30 million Americans state that “extreme weather has significantly harmed their lives,” and yet for too many, the images and depictions on TV, in the news, and in movies, do not adequately represent their experiences and once the next disaster hits the country immediately moves on and whole communities are forgotten just as they begin to try and rebuild. “Our town is rubble,” said Gina, a survivor of Hurricane Helene. “It looks like a scene from a movie. But this is our real life and we can’t just turn it off.”

Dewan, a survivor of the Eaton fire, shares “You can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see the flames, the embers. My whole neighborhood burned to the ground. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.”

Stolen Summers seeks to reclaim these stories and allow them to be told in a way that honors the experience of those who survived them – the loss and also the heroism and strength of community. The nationwide network Extreme Weather Survivors has paired 30 visual artists from across the country representing the vast regional visual art disciplines – from still life oil painters to graphic designers famous for creating movie posters, to Appalachian ballad singers – with 30 survivors who have lived through record breaking heat, floods, fires, and hurricanes. Each of the 30 pairs represents one million Americans significantly harmed by extreme weather. This year, the Stolen Summers tour honors their experience, in their own words, and to connect these losses into one story — the new American story.

Summer used to mean something else - barefoot days at the park, BBQs in the backyard, family road trips, swimming holes, and cool nights around a campfire. But for millions of Americans, extreme weather has stolen that version of summer. Today’s summers bring blistering heatwaves that leave children trapped indoors for weeks at a time, record drought, choking smoke, catastrophic floods, and raging wildfires. Campgrounds are reduced to ash. Swingsets sear skin. Family vacations, concerts and outdoor sports are canceled because the air is too dangerous to breathe. This unpredictability bleeds into the rest of the year with seasons starting to lose their meaning and families bearing the brunt of the consequences.

Many Americans see this shift in their own lives — but too few recognize it as part of a larger pattern. Last summer, even in the face of historic disasters in Los Angeles and Asheville, we rarely discussed its primary cause — climate change. Even the term “climate change” has become polarizing – dividing communities against each other at a time when we most need to work together.

“Our hope is that this exhibit tells the truth about how we survive these increasingly frequent disasters – the horror, but also the beauty of how we pull together. – We hope it will spark new conversations, similar to the conversations we have started between survivor and artist,” said Sierra Kos, EWS Chief Creative Officer and Co-Founder. “We are inviting communities to reflect, reckon, and reimagine what comes next.”

“This level of extreme weather isn’t the new normal. Until we as a society can agree that it’s a problem, each year—each summer—will only get worse. Much like disaster recovery, the only way to solve a systems-wide crisis of this scale is by working together—across political parties, across disasters, and across communities,” said Chris Kocher, Chief Organizing Officer and Co-Founder.

In cities across the U.S., the Stolen Summers art installation will interrupt the status quo with community gatherings around this first of its kind traveling art exhibit. The 30 movie-sized artistic representations of each of the 30 survivors stories will preview alongside local performing artists, the visual artists who created the work and survivors who powerfully shared their stories. The tour is an opportunity to take action.

All are invited for an afternoon of conversation and community.