Call-and-Response: a photography exhibition at the heart of BSCA 2026

What can a photograph do that a graph cannot? The question is not rhetorical. As Belgium navigates the path to climate neutrality, the ways in which we represent that journey — not only in data, but in images, textures and affects — shape what we collectively understand to be at stake.

Call-and-Response is a photography exhibition by thirty students from the École Supérieure des Arts de l'image LE 75 (ESA LE 75), commissioned by Francesca Valentini and presented throughout the Belgian Science for Climate Action Conference 2026. Running across both days of the conference at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, the exhibition the exhibition operates as an active interlocutor to the scientific programme, foregrounding artistic practice as a distinct mode of inquiry into the climate transition.

Where the conference sessions address decarbonisation pathways, just transition frameworks and physical climate science, Call-and-Response works through observation, gaze and visual hypothesis. The result is a polyphonic space where photographic practice and climate science enter into dialogue, and where different forms of knowledge can meet, intersect and generate new collective imaginaries.

The exhibition is open to conference participants during both days. A dedicated public opening takes place on Tuesday 17 March from 17:15 to 18:45. Admission is free but places are limited, so do register.