Climate Action Middlesbrough are currently presenting ‘Our Place in the Family of Things’ at the Dorman Museum, an exhibition that looks at our relationship to the natural world, climate change, climate action, ecology and care.

One of the UK’s greatest ever satirists, Peter Cook, once referred to “those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War.” He was – in his trademark cynical style – pointing to the fact that art doesn’t really change anything. But I don’t think this is true. As the writer Annabel Keenan points out: “Art is uniquely positioned to make complex issues understandable and difficult truths palatable. Artists put a mirror to society, revealing the world around us through a creative lens. In the fight against climate breakdown (a term that suggests the climate has surpassed change and is now facing potentially irreparable damage), art and artists can be catalysts for action.” Keenan – a New York-based writer who specialises in contemporary art and sustainability – has written a new piece for ‘Our Place in the Family of Things’, a wonderfully eclectic exhibition that is currently illuminating Middlesbrough’s Dorman Museum. (You can pick up a free booklet at the museum that features Keenan’s piece alongside an article from the Northern Irish nature writer Kerri ní Dochartaigh.)

The exhibition – curated by Neil McNally – features an array of local, national and international artists, many of who have never shown work in the region before, and takes in a range of disciplines including painting, installations, films, sculpture, soundtracks, poetry, folklore and other displays. And alongside famous pieces from the likes of Thomas Bewick (the printmaker who was the creator of the first bird book) and Albrecht Dürer (who saw nature as the true source of art), the show features many works that have been created especially for it. David Hoyle – the legendary avant-garde cabaret and performance artist – has made a collaged painting ‘Peace Heals War Pollutes’, while Rebecca Parkin is showing a modern-day Ophelia (pictured) submerged in a rather murky river. Elsewhere Rebecca Chesney’s sculptures address concerns over rising temperatures and flooding, while, intriguingly, Kinga Kiełczyńska has used AI to create a cli-fi (climate fiction) fairytale of ecological catastrophe, where life is less material-driven yet rich in experience and imagination. This contrasts with Lucy Wright’s artistic responses to finding new traditions of care, equity and interspecies kinship. Yaya Xi-lin Wang shows drawings about relearning our relationship to the plant and non-human kins, nurturing repair and making our individual growth part of the collective growth. Luminara Florescu, meanwhile, looks at “the essential need for rest as an antidote to Capitalism and a society that equates hyper-productivity with self-worth.”

Monsters (and kaiju) feature frequently in the show, from Rebecca Parkin’s famous grinning toad politicians, to Aster Guinness’s Monster Energy drink (Guinness is also showing new paintings that feature portraits of friends and family, floral still lives and abstracted landscapes). Also – on the monster theme – clay monsters have been made by children from Abingdon Primary school, while DJ and musician Jake Stewart (AKA 1-800 Girls) has written a new piece of music especially for the show that alludes to the iconic Godzilla soundtrack.

In summary, I’d say park any Peter Cook style cynicism you may have at the door and let this wonderful show into your life. It’s thought-provoking, enormously entertaining, and addresses perhaps the most important issue facing us today.

Our Place in the Family of Things, until 14 September, Dorman Museum, Middlesbrough, open Tues-Sun, 10am-4pm. Note: running alongside the exhibition – every Saturday over the summer holidays – will be free weekly workshops with writers, artists and archaeologists. teesvalleymuseums.org/visit/dorman-museum