2025
Climate Quest (This page is a draft)
In a world full of overwhelming climate data, it's easy for the younger generation to feel anxious and helpless. This exhibition offers a new approach — one that doesn't just inform, but transforms how people can connect with the climate crisis.
By turning data from numbers into a powerful and sensory journey, we move beyond just raising awareness and spark action.
This isn't just an installation. It's an invitation for the youth to act together against climate change. Through immersive storytelling and collective interaction, we can prove that individual choices when added together can shift the tide.
The brief:
“Develop an immersive and interactive exhibition that envisions the future of Aotearoa. Through the lens of sustainability and grounded in Adobe's core value of ‘Create the future’.”
Our Problem statement:
“There is a growing disconnect between climate awareness and climate action among young Aucklanders. While 60% of youth in NZ report feeling anxious about climate change, the data-heavy way it's communicated leaves them feeling overwhelmed and powerless, unable to see how their individual choices contribute to meaningful change.”
Research question:
“How might we turn climate data into a visceral, immersive journey that empowers individuals by visualising the collective power of their choices?”
To answer this, we narrowed our scope from climate change broadly to one of its most visible and urgent consequences in Aotearoa, rising sea levels. We investigated the science behind sea-level rise locally (thermal expansion, ice melt, relative sea rise in regions like Christchurch), studied the psychology of climate anxiety in young people (the 2021 Lancet survey on youth climate anxiety, Climate Outreach's findings on storytelling vs jargon), and analysed precedents like Te Papa's Our Changing City exhibition to understand how immersive installations can localise abstract data.
Research
We defined the core focus area from the UN sustainable development goals and chose climate action as the most relevant goal for New Zealand.
To dive deeper into the problem, we identified sea level rise was a serious problem especially in the Viaduct in Auckland.
Sea level rise in NZ
Source: Image005.png | Earth Sciences New Zealand | NIWA. (n.d.). https://niwa.co.nz/images/image005png-0
Diving deeper into research, we found sea level rise was a serious issue and it is projected to only get worse in the foreseeable future.
Target Audience Key Insights
In our target audience research, we found that young adults in NZ feel high levels of climate change concern, and often struggle to translate that worry into significant action due to a combination of factors: Perceived lack of agency, emotional distress from climate anxiety, and a disconnect between awareness and effective action strategies.
Many youth continue to feel disempowered, Thinking that effective climate solutions rest in the hands of governments and industries, rather than individuals.
This lack of agency, combined with the short supply of practical action messages in media to deal with this problem, and educate may contribute to the gap between climate concerns and behavioural change.
Ideation
One of my initial ideas was to create an immersive sensory journey with projection mapping on fabric to immerse visitors and allow them to deeper understand the problem.
After further ideation as a team we had a concept of a topographic model of the north island to show the effects of sea levels in the projected future.
We found that this concept only raised awareness of sea level rise but lacked the crucial part of allowing visitors to feel a sense of agency and to make them feel that their contribution to climate change can be impactful.
Another idea we had was to create a game to allow people to gain a deeper understanding of the topic in a Kahoot style format.
Something our target audience was already familiar with.
I had created a Lofi-mock up for the Kahoot style game experience. This idea remained a concept and a motion explainer video was created to pitch the concept to the clients at Adobe.
Installation ideation
My graphics team mates Jess and Rachel came up with an idea of having “action cards” with sustainable actions people can take in their everyday.
The idea was to allow people to take one and scan it to accomplish the feeling that they made a positive impact.
Working closely with my team, we came up with the idea of having an iPad as a card scanner and to show the visual impact on a big screen.
The big screen features an illustration of Auckland City that is submerged in water. Each time a visitor scans the card on the iPad, the sea level drops, signifying that an individual contribution can create a real difference.
Lofi-mock up
For the QR code scanner, I wanted to keep the interaction as simple as possible with only three screens for the experience.
UI testing with colours and typography provided from Jess and Rachel (graphic designers).
Hifi design
Working closely with graphics team, this was the final design. I conducted user testing and found that the scan success screen required some sort of feedback and a positive confirmation, featuring characters and mascots from the exhibition brand.
Sea Level Display
We wanted to add a section on the left top of the screen showing the amount of contribution from past visitors to show collective contribution matters.
Each scan drops the sea level by 5% and also tracking the number contributions. The sea level resets at the bottom.
Exhibition photos
We had the amazing opportunity to exhibit our work at Silo 6 in Wynyard Quarter Auckland for a public viewing.
Outcome
All motion videos created by motion designer Sam Shin
