Beyond Measurement: The Emotion & Behavioral Intent Grid for Multi-interpretability in Environmental Art Exhibitions

While cultural institutions increasingly serve as platforms for sustainability education, traditional measurement approaches often fail to capture the diverse ways viewers interpret and emotionally connect with environmental art.This paper presents the development and implementation of the Emotion & Behavioral Intent Grid, a novel qualitative public engagement tool designed to bridge the measurement gap between aesthetic response and environmental engagement in exhibition spaces.Through a case study of "ArtScape: Connecting Art, Data, and Sustainability," an interactive environmental art exhibition featuring Driessens & Verstappen's "Fossil Remains, " this paper demonstrates how the proposed tool captured the relationship between emotional valence, intensity, and action readiness while maintaining visitor immersion and encouraging interpretive plurality.The findings suggest that environmental art installations can generate diverse interpretations and emotional responses ranging from distress to fascination, which potentially motivate different pathways to environmental action.This research contributes to our understanding of how multi-interpretable aesthetic experiences impact emotion, cognitive reflection, and collective meaning-making in sustainability contexts, offering cultural institutions practical tools for designing more effective and inclusive engagement approaches.