Under Pressure – A San Francisco artist brings a climate SOS to the National Museum of Mexican Art, using balloon, sound, and water-themed sculpture to urge community action in Chicago.
CHICAGO — A climate message can feel abstract until it’s staged in a way your body understands.
That’s the premise behind “Under Pressure. ” a new exhibit by Mexican-born. San Francisco-based artist Ana Teresa Fernández now on display at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago.. The four-year project uses everyday images—stretching. rupturing. silencing—to make environmental damage feel immediate. even visceral. for visitors walking through the museum’s galleries.
At the center is Fernández’s fascination with pressure as both a physical force and a social metaphor.. In one piece. she describes a white balloon as a stand-in for the globe or a glacier. then builds the sensation of strain through an act that viewers can visually grasp.. Wearing a stiletto. she used the weight of her own foot to mimic how human activity pushes the planet toward a breaking point—an approach that trades statistics for something closer to lived experience.
The exhibit also leans into the idea that climate change doesn’t just alter landscapes; it changes how we communicate with one another.. Fernández has created work that captures “deafening silence,” including a quiet, cross-cultural sound motif shaped to travel across languages.. Her “shh” element is meant as a kind of universal interruption—an appeal that avoids translation and instead uses the physical act of making a hush to draw attention to what has been ignored.
Water runs through the show as both subject and organizing principle.. Her oil paintings and sculptural pieces trace the ways water can sustain life while also reflecting vulnerability—especially in a city where the Great Lakes are part of daily geography and identity.. One installation includes a hose transformed and sculpted into a silver-feathered symbol identified as Quetzalcoatl. tying environmental concern to Indigenous myth and to the long human practice of interpreting nature through story.
The exhibit’s impact doesn’t stay inside the museum walls.. Fernández expanded the project into a public moment along Chicago’s lakefront, staging a giant S.O.S.. that she said was meant to send a clear plea to the wider world.. Participants formed the Morse code S.O.S.—three dashes. three dots—by holding mirrors that reflected light. turning shoreline space into a kind of temporary civic instrument.
That combination of art and participation is a deliberate choice. and it reflects a broader trend in American culture: as climate anxiety rises. many creators are searching for formats that feel communal rather than solitary.. When people see others take part—when the message is physically constructed on the ground—it can feel less like doomscrolling and more like collective resolve.. In Chicago, a city shaped by water, the lakefront setting makes the metaphor harder to dismiss.
It also matters that “Under Pressure” is framed through urgency rather than distance.. The show asks visitors not only to witness damage. but to consider what action could look like at the community scale—pleading for shorelines. for environmental protection. and for the future conditions that allow daily life to remain stable.. In practical terms, the exhibit invites residents and museum-goers to treat climate issues as local concerns, not far-off events.
Fernández has said the project functions as a kind of social monument—work meant to gather people around a shared message and keep that message visible over time.. The museum setting gives it permanence. while the earlier public staging demonstrates how quickly art can shift from viewing to participation.. For many visitors. the difference is the point: climate change can be both an emotional weight and a call to collective action. and art is one bridge between the two.
“Under Pressure” is open at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago through August 2.. For those who walk in expecting a gallery experience. the show’s real takeaway may come from how it uses pressure. silence. and light—turning abstract environmental concern into a message that feels urgent enough to answer.