--- title: The Story Behind TIME's 'Climate is Everything' Cover description: To illustrate the dramatic effects of climate change, we turned the TIME cover canvas over to an "artist who paints without a paintbrush.” canonical: https://time.com/5954495/story-behind-climate-is-everything-cover/ author: D.W. Pine article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-04-15T10:55:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:42:28.287Z article:section: Science og:title: The Story Behind TIME's 'Climate Is Everything' Cover og:description: TIME turned the cover canvas over to Malaysian artist Red Hong Yi to illustrate the looming climate crisis og:url: https://time.com/5954495/story-behind-climate-is-everything-cover/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0d4e21d173e694ea/698a18b522fb850cade2c15d/red.and_.cover_.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: Red Hong Yi and TIME Climate is Everything cover og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Story Behind TIME's 'Climate Is Everything' Cover twitter:description: TIME turned the cover canvas over to Malaysian artist Red Hong Yi to illustrate the looming climate crisis twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0d4e21d173e694ea/698a18b522fb850cade2c15d/red.and_.cover_.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Story Behind TIME's 'Climate Is Everything' Cover > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Future Proof: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Future Proof is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Making sense of the climate and energy economy. Future Proof examines the forces transforming energy and climate, and what those changes mean for business, technology, policy and the global economy. Senior correspondent Justin Worland goes beyond traditional climate coverage to connect the energy transition to the bigger decisions reshaping companies, markets and society. 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It reaches 40,000 subscribers with a 34.2% open rate and a 2.1% click rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I follow the energy transition as a business story? Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Red Hong Yi: Yao Ming Portrait with a Basketball [Watch (HLS stream): Red Hong Yi: Yao Ming Portrait with a Basketball](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/aU5MlC21.m3u8) (0:42)  _Published 2021-04-14. To illustrate the dramatic effects of climate change, TIME turned the cover canvas over to an “artist who paints without a paintbrush:” Red Hong Yi_  by [D.W. Pine](https://time.com/author/d-w-pine/)  ## D.W. Pine Pine is the Creative Director at TIME. Apr 15, 2021 10:55 AM UTC  Photograph by Annice Lyn for TIME  by [D.W. Pine](https://time.com/author/d-w-pine/)  ## D.W. Pine Pine is the Creative Director at TIME. Apr 15, 2021 10:55 AM UTC To illustrate the dramatic effects of climate change on our interconnected world for the April 26 issue of TIME, we turned the cover canvas over to “an artist who paints without a paintbrush.” Malaysian artist Red Hong Yi spent two weeks creating an image that is part sculpture, part performance art. She and her six-person team constructed a 7.5 x 10-foot world map out of 50,000 green-tipped matchsticks. She then set the artwork on fire—representing how the [global climate crisis touches all of us](https://time.com/climate-is-everything), no matter where we live.  Photograph by Annice Lyn for TIME “The motivation behind it came from the urgency of having to tackle \[climate change\] together,” Red says. “The idea came from wanting to highlight a world map, where everyone’s involved, and if one place is affected, the whole place is affected.” **Read More:** [_The Pandemic Remade Every Corner of Society. Now It’s the Climate’s Turn_](https://time.com/climate-is-everything)  Photographs by Annice Lyn for TIME Red designed the dimensions and positions for the matchsticks on a computer, laser cut the holes onto a board and then began the painstaking task of inserting each one by hand. Her team also sprayed layers of fire retardant paint, both on the front and back of the board to make sure the fire didn’t take over the entire piece. The green matchsticks, placed at varying heights for topographic effect, served as a metaphor for trees. In nearly 100 years of TIME covers, never has a work of art been so drastically transformed in the process.  Photographs by David Yeow and Annice Lyn for TIME “I think it was just the race against time and it was fun building that together, but of course we knew it would be burned down,” Red says. “The whole idea behind that was it takes a long time to build something up, but it can be destroyed really quickly, too.” Red started her career as an architect and received her Master of Architecture degree from the University of Melbourne. About nine years ago, she posted a video of her dribbling a basketball covered in paint to create a portrait of NBA star Yao Ming. That video went viral and led her to pursue art full-time. “When I approach my art projects, I think like an architect. Most of the people on my team are architecture graduates,” says Red. “It’s very planned and I think I approach it in a kind of a designer-esque way.” That approach is clear in Red’s past work, which includes a [portrait of Jackie Chan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-N3nb4%5FzjU) made of 60,000 chopsticks; an [installation for a tech company in Singapore](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-N3nb4%5FzjU) made of salt; a [portrait of artist Ai WeiWei](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmPHZveFHWw) using 100,000 sunflower seeds; a [portrait of Adele](https://redhongyi.com/portfolio/adele-made-of-melted-candles/) made of 1,500 melted candles to illustrate her song “Set Fire to the Rain;” and 20,000 teabags collected and stained to create an everyday local scene in Malaysia of a man making pulled tea—a piece that was commissioned by the World Economic Forum in Davos. This is Red’s first cover for TIME. Recently, she created a series of incredibly personal and emotional pieces titled “I Am Not a Virus” which addresses [rising anti-Asian violence and racism](https://time.com/5947723/atlanta-shootings-anti-asian-violence-america/) over the past year.  Photograph by Danielle Soong “Race and ethnicity has always been a topic that’s very, very uncomfortable to me. And so it was pretty emotional to create that piece and talk directly and openly publicly about it on my platforms,” said the artist. “When I spoke to a lot of my Asian friends about it, a lot of them, like me, have experienced it directly. I believe that similarly, people from all sorts of backgrounds have to stand up and speak up about this. When the pandemic happened, I was getting my work visa processed, friends in the U.S. said it might not be a good time to come over because of the numbers and also because of, well, the color of our skin. And I think that prompted me to want to create those pieces.” Red’s work has been exhibited at H Queens in Hong Kong, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, World Economic Forum in Davos, Anchorage Museum in Alaska and JP Morgan Chase Bank. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5954495/story-behind-climate-is-everything-cover/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5954495/story-behind-climate-is-everything-cover/"},"headline":"The Story Behind TIME's 'Climate Is Everything' Cover","datePublished":"2021-04-15T10:55:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:42:28.287Z","description":"To illustrate the dramatic effects of climate change, we turned the TIME cover canvas over to an \"artist who paints without a paintbrush.”","url":"https://time.com/5954495/story-behind-climate-is-everything-cover/","keywords":["climate change","Magazine"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0d4e21d173e694ea/698a18b522fb850cade2c15d/red.and_.cover_.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"D.W. 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