tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/climate-change-and-art-36372/articlesClimate change and art – The Conversation2023-12-11T21:10:27Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2193662023-12-11T21:10:27Z2023-12-11T21:10:27ZCOP28: Climate change theatre and performances reveal new narratives about how we need to live<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/cop28-climate-change-theatre-and-performances-reveal-new-narratives-about-how-we-need-to-live" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>How can arts (broadly defined) help us think about the state of the planet and walk the talk when it comes to addressing climate change — including climate finance <a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/raising-ambition/climate-finance?gclid=Cj0KCQiA4NWrBhD-ARIsAFCKwWu7xZgmkpsJ87IJTcy3ox--Bkswp_PT6NMM6RP3i-338JeAfIhEDCYaAmZyEALw_wcB">where those who contributed more to the problem assume greater responsibilities for solving it</a> — <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-could-power-a-new-green-movement-by-talking-about-energy-change-132906">and energy transition</a>?</p>
<p>As a theatre scholar and practitioner <a href="https://theconversation.com/cop28-the-scientific-basis-for-a-rapid-fossil-fuel-phase-out-219382">attending the COP28</a> climate summit, I was invited to experience a performance of the play <em>Bright Light Burning</em>. Playwright <a href="https://www.stevengaultney.com/happenings">Steven Gaultney</a> authored this play, and it was produced by the Cairo-based, internationally recognized <a href="https://www.theatreofothers.com/">The Theatre of Others</a>. Adam Marple, <a href="https://greenfutures.exeter.ac.uk/latest-events/">co-artistic director of this theatre</a>, invited me to the performance. </p>
<p>Marple is also project lead of the <a href="https://sustainable-theatre.org/about/">Sustainable Theatre Network</a> and a guest on one of my climate change research projects, <a href="https://howlround.com/series/people-planet-and-performance-global-south-world">People, Place and Performance</a>. </p>
<p>The performance <em>Bright Light Burning</em>, in dialogue with my own research and theatre practice, led me to reflect on the role of art in climate change issues. </p>
<h2><em>Bright Light Burning</em></h2>
<p><a href="https://news.exeter.ac.uk/world/middle-east/we-are-the-possible-uk-uae-initiative-to-catalyse-climate-action-and-solutions-for-cop28/"><em>Bright Light Burning</em>, set in 2100</a>, is a stage performance that is inspired by <a href="https://www.cop28.com/schedule/we-are-the-possible"><em>We Are the Possible</em></a>, an anthology of 12 poems for 12 days of COP28.</p>
<p>The project takes its name from <a href="https://www.themarginalian.org/2018/05/09/a-brave-and-startling-truth-maya-angelou/">a Maya Angelou poem</a>. The poetry anthology was a collaboration between scientists, health experts, educators, translators, artists and youth leaders in the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. The project aims “<a href="https://greenfutures.exeter.ac.uk/our-impact/we-are-the-possible/todays-poem-interstellar">to unite us to forge a greener healthier, and fairer world</a>.” </p>
<p><em>Bright Light Burning</em>, inspired by this larger poetry endeavour, is a theatrical journey that merges artistry, storytelling and environmental activism. The play presents choices made by individuals in responses to climate change — from denial to activism. </p>
<p>It addresses policymakers on the importance of storytelling in forging new directions. The ensemble comprises actors from different parts of the world — from Singapore to Australia, Egypt to the United States, United Arab Emirates to the United Kingdom. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Bright Light Burning’ Dec. 7 performance at COP28.</span></figcaption>
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<p>As different stakeholders continue to enact signed deals, pledges and commitments after COP28, and as communities grapple with the need for political will to implement needed change, who is present or absent at the table is important to achieving an equitable future. </p>
<p>Here are four ideas that could guide interactions, negotiations, thinking and actions around climate justice.</p>
<p><strong>1. Think globally, act locally and personally</strong></p>
<p>Central to the perspectives offered in these performances is the need to decentre a universalist approach to resolving climate issues. <em>We Are The Possible</em> reminds us to start where we are — not out of fear, but hope that humans have the capacity to bring about change. We have to believe in that.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-stay-hopeful-in-a-world-seemingly-beyond-saving-210415">How to stay hopeful in a world seemingly beyond saving</a>
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<p>We need to re-engage place-based and localized solutions, because what works in Latin America may not work in North America. </p>
<p>In my own context in Saskatchewan, theatre artists in <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-theatre-we-want-in-2040-we-used-strategic-foresight-to-plan-on-the-prairies-199968">have relied on “strategic foresight”</a> to imagine how the theatre we want in the Prairies could help people navigate climate instability while transforming racial injustice. Through such approaches, the capacity of different regions can be built. </p>
<p><strong>2. Embrace alternative ways of knowing</strong></p>
<p>The performances I have seen at COP28 and other theatre projects such as <a href="https://www.sustainablepractice.org/ccta/">climate change theatre action</a> remind us of the need to return to a relational approach with nature in our existence, and advocate for green theatre. </p>
<p>When we develop habits of seeing ourselves as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/12/future-generations-ancestors-politics-business-planet">future ancestors, this means we have to save for the future generation and this means consuming less</a>. This way of seeing and knowing ourselves in relationship to our world in turn affects how we use resources. The performances of <em>Bright Light Burning</em> were designed with a minimalist approach — no prop, set, light or make-up etc. This approach to “greening theatre” has been reiterated by arts practitioners.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Retooling Green Tools for Theatre in Africa: People Planet and Performance roundtable discussion from July 2023.</span></figcaption>
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<p><a href="https://cset.ca/">Socially engaged theatre</a> is about holding urgent social questions at the centre of our theatre practice. In so doing, as we engage with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, questions emerge: What alternative knowledge systems critical to ecological and cultural processes are yet to be known? How can alternative knowledge that has been pushed to the periphery help us think and walk through the <a href="https://theconversation.com/polycrisis-may-be-a-buzzword-but-it-could-help-us-tackle-the-worlds-woes-195280">polycrisis</a>? In what ways can knowledge from the global majority be amplified? </p>
<p>For instance, prioritizing the perspectives of Indigenous Peoples will require genuine inclusion since it is believed <a href="https://www.iisd.org/articles/deep-dive/indigenous-peoples-defending-environment-all#">that Indigenous Peoples are stewards of 80 per cent of the world’s biodiversity</a>. Their intergenerational leadership, practices and knowledge in sustainable climate justice need to be recognized for biodiversity to be recovered.</p>
<p>As I saw in my work on <a href="https://iletisim.com.tr/dergiler/kultur-politikasi-yillik/5/sayi-2-cultural-policy-yearbook-2019/10044/diversity-metrics-a-reflection-on-themes-from-a-refugee-theatre-project-in-canada/11822">theatre and immigration</a> which resulted in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENyqnOdTgZk">Onion Theatre project</a>, where youth devised a play about immigrant experiences, art can offer us space to foster dialogue to gain insights into ways we can be open to alternative and new ways of knowing — <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352818852_On_Border_and_Identity_A_Performative_Reflection_from_an_Applied_Theatre_Project">something critical to forging a pathway to an equitable future</a>.</p>
<p><strong>3. Embrace the need for a holistic system approach</strong> while fostering equal partnerships that seek to account for inequities, such as class-based and racialized inequities. <a href="https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/atr.5.2.67_1">Holistic system approaches mean that participation</a> in climate change mitigation, anticipatory adaptation and climate justice initiatives should involve equal and genuine partnership and collaboration across geographies.
Having a “co-design” mindset is essential to building sustainable systems and solutions.</p>
<p><strong>4. Finally, artists and creative initiatives continue to challenge us to champion climate action.</strong> <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/theater/article-abstract/25/1/23/23626/There-Must-Be-a-Lot-of-Fish-in-That-Lake-Toward-an">Creatives are invited to think about the impact of</a> their production on health, recovery, peace finance, just transition, gender equality and Indigenous Peoples globally.</p>
<p>All hands must be on deck to walk the talk emerging from COP28, if these conversations are to yield the desired results.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219366/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Taiwo Afolabi acknowledges the support of the University of Regina and the Centre for Sustainable Practices in the Arts (CSPA) in attending COP28.</span></em></p>Theatre and the arts can be vehicles for thinking globally and acting locally, embracing alternative ways of knowing and acknowledging holistic approaches to addressing climate change.Taiwo Afolabi, Canada Research Chair in Socially Engaged Theatre; Director, Centre for Socially Engaged Theatre (C-SET), University of ReginaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2027172023-03-30T03:33:57Z2023-03-30T03:33:57Z‘There is no blueprint’: how Australian theatre companies are facing the climate crisis<p>At the launch of the new national cultural policy earlier this year, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese <a href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/streaming/anthony-albanese-to-unleash-millions-for-cash-strapped-arts-sector/news-story/cfea432dffb0f99bb46006dbd5f6a701">said</a> we must lift the arts beyond the economic debate, and see it as a vital part of Australia’s identity and soul. </p>
<p>If we are to truly revive our cultural and creative institutions in the decades to come, we must take on the full meaning of the term “sustainability”, going beyond its economic associations. </p>
<p>The sustainability of our culture is quite literally dependent on the sustainability of our planet. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0034/1732939/Culture-for-Climate_Report_Final.pdf">Our new report</a> asks if achieving environmental sustainability should be a key goal for all Australian performing arts companies and, if so, how can it be achieved?</p>
<p>Our report focuses on 13 Australian arts organisations demonstrating a commitment to sustainability in their programming, practices and policies.</p>
<p>Everyone interviewed agreed there is a clear need to support a sector-wide transition to sustainability, yet also acknowledged challenges in doing so. </p>
<p>As Ang Collins, marketing manager and sustainability coordinator at Sydney’s Griffin Theatre, told us:</p>
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<p>there is no blueprint for how a theatre company should run sustainably or a checklist for things to do, and there are no traditions, there are no networks for borrowing sets or reuse […] no proper knowledge sharing and systems in place.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-transforming-australias-cultural-life-so-why-isnt-it-mentioned-in-the-new-national-cultural-policy-198881">Climate change is transforming Australia’s cultural life – so why isn’t it mentioned in the new national cultural policy?</a>
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<h2>Building a show</h2>
<p>For many small-to-medium organisations, resourcefulness is already a valued part of their operation. </p>
<p>Limited budgets mean reusing and recycling materials is a necessity. </p>
<p>Briony Anderson of Terrapin Puppet Theatre in Hobart points out spending money on labour rather than materials contributes to both ecological and economic goals. </p>
<p>She told us:</p>
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<p>We believe our purpose is to make Tasmanian - and Australian - lives better through our work. We understand that rapid transition to a low-carbon economy is imperative in a changing climate.</p>
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<p>Sue Giles, co-CEO of Melbourne’s Polyglot Theatre, says the aesthetic challenge of sustainability should be embraced:</p>
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<p>sustainability is a relationship between aesthetics and good practice […] it doesn’t have to reflect poorly on the outcome, it can actually enhance the outcome.</p>
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<p>Small companies cite their limited budgets as a spur to reduce and recycle. For larger companies it is the other way around. They argue limited budgets are contributing to less environmentally sustainable choices.</p>
<p>These companies face pressure to produce “high quality” work. Giles Perkins, the executive director of Sydney’s Bell Shakespeare, told us:</p>
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<p>being more sustainable has a considerable cost imperative. The cheapest materials are often the least sustainable.</p>
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<h2>Valuing time and input</h2>
<p>Smaller companies are quicker in responding to ecological challenges. They are more agile and face fewer structural barriers to implementing changes. </p>
<p>Larger companies need dedicated policies to guide them through an appropriate transition. </p>
<p>For Griffin Theatre’s Collins, valuing people’s time is crucial:</p>
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<p>A priority of ours is to remunerate a passionate individual or individuals for the [sustainability] hours that they do, for someone to take ownership of the program and keep it in check, keep updating it, take on responsibility for the projects.</p>
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<p>Everyone we interviewed was upfront about the difficulty of always choosing the eco-friendly option. These options could be hard to identify, and were often more expensive. They indicated a need for cost-effective sustainable materials and products. </p>
<p>Many talked about the importance of shifting the culture of sustainability leadership in the workplace. </p>
<p>Belinda Kelly, executive producer of Hobart’s Terrapin Puppet Theatre, said: </p>
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<p>You clearly need the executive or management team to be supporting [the shift to more sustainable practices]. And you need to have a champion on the board to convince them that this is good business as well as [good] ethical reason[ing].</p>
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<p>Sustainability practices don’t just happen on stage.</p>
<p>Theatre venues are installing LED lighting and solar panels, and tracking carbon emissions. While on tour, companies are using tools such as Arts on Tour’s <a href="http://www.artsontour.com.au/green-touring/">Greening Touring Toolkit</a>, which provides advice on how to redesign touring to remove unnecessary emissions. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/artists-organize-to-offer-new-visions-for-tackling-climate-change-182484">Artists organize to offer new visions for tackling climate change</a>
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<h2>Moving forward</h2>
<p>Our report shows many theatre organisations across Australia are contending with implementing ethically-based, eco-friendly initiatives in their production and touring practices. </p>
<p>Through these interviews, we have identified four ways sustainable practices can be better achieved:</p>
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<li><p>celebrating resourceful approaches to theatre making</p></li>
<li><p>using sustainability tools to inform practices</p></li>
<li><p>sharing resources across artists and organisations</p></li>
<li><p>encouraging more mindful and slow touring practices.</p></li>
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<p>Going forwards, there is a strong need to examine policy settings, funding models and support structures to steer the sector towards a sustainable future. By doing so we can encourage new ecological practices, strengthen community bonds, germinate new ways of thinking and reinforce sustainability as a value we can share and celebrate. </p>
<p>If we agree the climate crisis calls for a shift in the way we view the world and in our relationship to it, then the performing arts have a pivotal role to play in this transition. </p>
<p>As Dead Puppet Society’s Helen Stephens told us:</p>
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<p>I want to know, what else is possible […] to know what in our lifetime is actually achievable in this space of art making and supporting our planet […] I want more knowledge […] I want there to be a constant conversation […] I want more understanding. I want to know how me doing this tiny thing […] will help all the things that impact climate change.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-for-a-new-age-of-enlightenment-why-climate-change-needs-60-000-artists-to-tell-its-story-58774">It's time for a new age of Enlightenment: why climate change needs 60,000 artists to tell its story</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202717/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Hassall is affiliated with P+ERL (Performance and Ecology Research Lab situated in the Creative Arts Research institute (CARI) at GriffithUuniversity.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Meyrick is affiliated with the Creative Arts Research Centre at Griffith University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Lazaroo is affiliated with P+ERL (Performance and Ecology Research Lab) situated in the Creative Arts Research institute (CARI) at Griffith University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Tanja Beer is affiliated with P+ERL (Performance and Ecology Research Lab situated in the Creative Arts Research institute (CARI) at Griffith Uuniversity.</span></em></p>Our new report asks if achieving environmental sustainability should be a key goal for all Australian performing arts companies.Linda Hassall, Senior Lecturer Humanities, Griffith UniversityJulian Meyrick, Professor of Creative Arts, Griffith UniversityNatalie Lazaroo, Lecturer, School of Education and Professional Studies, Griffith UniversityTanja Beer, Senior Lecturer, Queensland College of Art, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1657362021-08-19T01:16:30Z2021-08-19T01:16:30ZCould sending humans to sleep for a year help solve the climate crisis? A new play, Hibernation, asks this question<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416690/original/file-20210818-17-1wnk6jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C26%2C5930%2C3601&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matt Byrne/State Theatre Company South Australia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Hibernation by Finegan Kruckemeyer, State Theatre Company South Australia</em></p>
<p>What lengths would you go to in order to save the planet from climate crisis?
Stop eating meat and start composting? Recycle and “make do”, instead of buying new? </p>
<p>How about lock yourself securely in your home, climb into bed, and hibernate for a full year, giving the planet a chance to recharge and reset? </p>
<p>This is the provocative premise behind playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer’s bold new play Hibernation.</p>
<p>Performed in three acts, Hibernation introduces a global cast of characters in the year 2030: close enough to the present so as to feel timely and familiar; yet distant enough it is not impossible to imagine the realisation of this dystopian narrative.</p>
<p>Eighteen months ago, the thought of stay-at-home orders and “snap lockdowns” were otherworldly and extreme. Now, they are simply part and parcel of our collective efforts to keep our community safe. </p>
<p>Who knows what else could change between now and 2030? </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416688/original/file-20210818-13-pppixr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Production image: two people on a blue stage" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416688/original/file-20210818-13-pppixr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416688/original/file-20210818-13-pppixr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416688/original/file-20210818-13-pppixr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416688/original/file-20210818-13-pppixr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416688/original/file-20210818-13-pppixr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416688/original/file-20210818-13-pppixr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416688/original/file-20210818-13-pppixr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">2030 is close enough to the present to feel timely and familiar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matt Byrne/State Theatre Company South Australia</span></span>
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<p>The polished, crisp scenes of press conferences, the emotionally inflected media statements and a growing sense of turmoil are eerily familiar. Thousands of people are dying; or seeking refuge in other nations. Towns are flooding. Resources are scarce. Something has to change, urgently. </p>
<p>Enter the plan: to send the world into a forced, year-long slumber for the greater good. </p>
<p>Under Mitchell Butel’s dynamic and rhythmic direction, Hibernation explores the relational and emotional response to this bold plan for healing the planet. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-art-put-us-in-touch-with-our-feelings-about-climate-change-77084">Can art put us in touch with our feelings about climate change?</a>
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<h2>What is the cost of action, inaction and apathy?</h2>
<p>In the Canberra of this speculative future, chauvinism is alive and well. We meet the politicians claiming ownership of this daring plan and the policy maker who actually conceived it. They call for trust in the science, and promise no harm will come to the human population from the hibernation-inducing drug 54E–501E. </p>
<p>A young family in Africa pack for the “most not-going-anywhere-year” of their lives. </p>
<p>Ernesto and his husband in South America share a zoom call with his mother Cassandra, who foreshadows how the impact of this singular universal act will not be experienced in a universal way. </p>
<p>How different is the sacrifice of a year in the life of someone in their 70s compared to a year in the life of someone in their 20s? </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416691/original/file-20210818-23-1n2fqdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Characters talk over zoom." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416691/original/file-20210818-23-1n2fqdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416691/original/file-20210818-23-1n2fqdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416691/original/file-20210818-23-1n2fqdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416691/original/file-20210818-23-1n2fqdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416691/original/file-20210818-23-1n2fqdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416691/original/file-20210818-23-1n2fqdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416691/original/file-20210818-23-1n2fqdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Sacrifices aren’t made equal: what does someone in their 70s lose, compared to someone in their 20s?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matt Byrne/State Theatre Company South Australia</span></span>
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<p>We witness the strength of conviction of American news hosts as they refuse to follow the auto-cue and, instead, attempt to communicate with care and consideration for the listeners on the other side of the screen. </p>
<p>Serving as a stark juxtaposition, act two focuses our attention in a vividly local way. Two Adelaideans, immune to 54E–501E, have free reign over the city. They share rich verbal illustrations of birds overtaking shopfronts and forests germinating from cricket pitches: businesses and ovals have become green houses and bio domes. </p>
<p>This scenario: the only two souls awake in a city where lions and hyenas — set free from the zoo on the eve of hibernation — roam the streets, is not as joyously poetic as it might first seem. </p>
<p>In act three, we return to our global characters and witness the impact and fall out of this experiment in planetary survival. As Cassandra laments, “we are what we are.” The human response to change and loss is messy and hopeful; loving and flawed.</p>
<h2>Theatre in a time of crisis</h2>
<p>Jonathon Oxlade’s set design is elegantly symbolic and sleek, with the lighting (Gavin Norris), sound (Andrew Howard) and video (Matt Byrne) cohesively supporting our immersive connection to each location. These integrated design elements direct our gaze across the stage, inviting the audiences’ imagination to fill the spaces between the pops of colour, light and rhythm. </p>
<p>It is an utter joy and privilege to be treated to this cast of 10 who deliver nuanced, heartfelt and compelling performances. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416692/original/file-20210818-19-17a7o0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416692/original/file-20210818-19-17a7o0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416692/original/file-20210818-19-17a7o0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416692/original/file-20210818-19-17a7o0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416692/original/file-20210818-19-17a7o0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416692/original/file-20210818-19-17a7o0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416692/original/file-20210818-19-17a7o0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416692/original/file-20210818-19-17a7o0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The cast deliver nuanced, heartfelt and compelling performances.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chris Herzfeld/State Theatre Company South Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hibernation makes the most of this large cast, with the full ensemble filling the stage for striking movement sequences, stylised depictions of parliamentary question time and a collage-like arrangement of characters preparing for their 365-day rest and reset. At a time when so many across the nation are distancing and isolated, the choreography and presence of a large cast on stage is a delight.</p>
<p>Hibernation balances a tripartite tightrope: telling a story on an ambitiously global scale; representing heartfelt human connection in the local and personal; and offering challenging food for thought, which will continue to linger in the back of your mind long after the lights go down. </p>
<p>Stories wrestling with what it means to exist, to navigate relationships, and to make good choices in a contemporary context are just one of the glorious gifts theatre can offer its community.</p>
<p><em>Hibernation plays at the Dunstan Playhouse until August 28.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/loss-for-words-art-language-and-the-challenges-of-living-on-a-changing-planet-61844">Loss for words: Art, language and the challenges of living on a changing planet</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165736/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Peters does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In a bold new play, all of humanity takes a drug to induce a year’s hibernation.Sarah Peters, Senior Lecturer in Drama, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1230842019-10-06T18:50:55Z2019-10-06T18:50:55ZExtinction Rebellion: how to craft a protest brand<p>Visual arts and performance have always been central to protest and resistance movements in Australia. Posters, street theatre, music and symbolic actions are part of the vocabulary of calls for social and political change. </p>
<p>The cardboard placards, banners and chants of September’s massive school strike for climate connected with this rich creative history. Now <a href="https://rebellion.earth/">Extinction Rebellion</a> — or XR — has gone a step further, purposefully creating a unified, easily identifiable appearance. A look at the group’s practices shows a new approach to arts activism. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EAgpUlhJFb4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">UK band Radiohead donated the proceeds of their OK Computer Bandcamp to Extinction Rebellion and gave permission for them to use this song.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Museums of modern protest</h2>
<p>Public institutions document our protest history with exhibitions drawing on substantial collections of ephemera: last year the Tasmanian Art Gallery and Museum installed <a href="https://www.tmag.tas.gov.au/whats_on/newsselect/2018articles/_..._were_not_going_to_the_mainland">“We’re not going to the mainland”</a> to mark three decades of campaigning for LGBTI rights, while exhibitions like <a href="https://museumsvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/whats-on/revolutions-records-and-rebels/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5Lqlirfq5AIVB5SPCh3-iQLAEAAYASAAEgLfmfD_BwE">Revolutions: Records and Rebels</a> and <a href="https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/arts-and-culture/city-gallery/exhibition-archive/pages/we-protest.aspx">We Protest</a> in Melbourne, and <a href="https://seditionfestival.com/home">The art of sedition</a> festival in Sydney, celebrated the vibrancy of protest in those cities since the 1960s. No doubt there will be more exhibitions next year to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/vietnam-moratoriums">Vietnam Moratorium</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295377/original/file-20191003-82491-pflrjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295377/original/file-20191003-82491-pflrjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295377/original/file-20191003-82491-pflrjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295377/original/file-20191003-82491-pflrjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295377/original/file-20191003-82491-pflrjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295377/original/file-20191003-82491-pflrjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295377/original/file-20191003-82491-pflrjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295377/original/file-20191003-82491-pflrjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1952 protest against atomic bomb testing near the Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/261716">State Library of Victoria</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These retrospectives show us what activism looks like and reveal how the arts shape the visual and cultural expressions of each movement. </p>
<p>XR, the new kid on the block, has gone a step further, purposefully creating a unified, easily identifiable appearance. Its style verges on corporate branding, which is ironic given that XR identifies as a “do it together movement” and makes all its design and artwork free for non-commercial use “for the purpose of planet saving”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294686/original/file-20190930-185415-1nlqh2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294686/original/file-20190930-185415-1nlqh2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294686/original/file-20190930-185415-1nlqh2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294686/original/file-20190930-185415-1nlqh2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294686/original/file-20190930-185415-1nlqh2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294686/original/file-20190930-185415-1nlqh2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294686/original/file-20190930-185415-1nlqh2b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Extinction Rebellion Northcote Drown-In.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julian Meehan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Looking good</h2>
<p>XR is an international movement that promotes civil disobedience and non-violent direct action in an effort to compel urgent action in climate change. In April this year, it shut down key parts of London with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/24/extinction-rebellion-declares-end-to-london-protests">two weeks</a> of rolling protests. More than 1000 activists were arrested in the process. </p>
<p>Although XR has only been present in Australia since January, it has already established more than <a href="https://rebellion.earth/act-now/local-groups/">18 chapters</a> and launched actions in every state. Last week, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton <a href="https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2019/10/03/peter-dutton-demands-tougher-penalties-for-climate-change-protesters/">called for protesters to have welfare payments cancelled</a> and the Queensland government has signalled <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/21/queensland-government-accused-of-fabricating-claims-about-climate-activists">new police powers following XR protests</a>. XR’s presence is likely to be felt more keenly during a new global “<a href="https://rebellion.earth/event/international-rebellion-begins-7-october-2019/">rebellion</a>” beginning today.</p>
<p>No doubt many supporters are drawn to XR because they feel its disruptive tactics match the urgency of the climate emergency. But XR’s distinctive look also helps raise its profile. According to <a href="https://www.creativereview.co.uk/extinction-rebellion-on-its-striking-protest-graphics/">Clive Russell</a>, a graphic designer working with XR’s arts group, the aim was to design something that looked nothing like previous movements. Eco and punk aesthetics were intentionally avoided. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294629/original/file-20190928-185379-sbpb2t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294629/original/file-20190928-185379-sbpb2t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294629/original/file-20190928-185379-sbpb2t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294629/original/file-20190928-185379-sbpb2t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294629/original/file-20190928-185379-sbpb2t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294629/original/file-20190928-185379-sbpb2t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294629/original/file-20190928-185379-sbpb2t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spring Rebellion flyer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Extinction Rebellion</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The stylised hourglass of the distinctive XR symbol was conceived in 2011 by the <a href="https://www.extinctionsymbol.info/">UK street artist ESP</a>. Its use on a swathe of multi-coloured flags makes an XR action immediately identifiable. The palette is vibrant and extensive, but distinguishes itself from the rainbow colours associated with the LGBTQI+ movement or with a hippie-style counter culture. </p>
<p>The designers use a font that has a slight retro feel, and were influenced by the graphics of the Paris protests of 1968 and by the design style of the <a href="https://monoskop.org/Situationist_International">Situationist International</a> artist collective. They wanted to communicate the angry but non-violent values of the rebellion.</p>
<h2>Guided, collaborative, noncommercial</h2>
<p>Any group or individual wanting to make posters or flyers can draw on the <a href="https://extinctionrebellion.nz/portfolio-items/xr-design-programme-v1-0-pdf/">Design Guide</a> and a library of illustrations that resemble woodblock prints. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294631/original/file-20190928-185375-rq8b97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294631/original/file-20190928-185375-rq8b97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294631/original/file-20190928-185375-rq8b97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294631/original/file-20190928-185375-rq8b97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294631/original/file-20190928-185375-rq8b97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294631/original/file-20190928-185375-rq8b97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294631/original/file-20190928-185375-rq8b97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294631/original/file-20190928-185375-rq8b97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">XR’s Disgustation Menu was smuggled into Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack’s Wagga Wagga business lunch in August.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Extinction Rebellion</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are illustrations of skeletons and bones, and of animals and plants facing extinction. There is an open invitation to improvise and extend this visual library, and local artists are contributing images of endangered Australian flora and fauna. Some have been converted into actual woodblocks to print images on clothing at events, but these are never for sale. Part of the “good faith” agreement with street artist ESP is that the XR symbol is never used for commercial purposes, including fundraising.</p>
<p>The Red Rebels performance group is another initiative that is shared and interpreted by XR groups internationally. Consisting of a silent choir of witnesses, the performers use Butoh-inspired gestures to communicate the tragedy of ecological collapse and climate catastrophe. This emphasis on the theatrics of disruption is a signature of the movement.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_Z7DbR9VY9E?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Red Rebels are a performance sub-group of XR.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While XR disruption manifests in a very public way, there is a subterranean complexity and organisational nous that connects the autonomous groups that make up each geographically defined XR chapter. Along with face-to-face meetings, interaction occurs over a digital platform with multiple channels that operate like chat rooms. Musicians, performers, writers, singers, sewers, crafters and artists engage in this chaotic virtual village square to develop shared creative projects. </p>
<p>XR’s cultural activism has generated choirs, performance groups, a <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamelan">gamelan</a> orchestra, sculptures, props and banners. The self-organising principles that underpin the movement encourage participation, similar to the way <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/community-art">community art</a> was realised in the late 20th Century and to its more contemporary manifestation as <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/socially-engaged-practice">social engaged practice</a>. Yet there are no lead artists nor arts funding here — all infrastructure and materials are donated, and all work is voluntary.</p>
<h2>Shared aesthetic, shared vision</h2>
<p>Despite the urgency of addressing climate change, marches, speeches and petitions have so far achieved little. Faced with government inaction, XR promotes non-violent civil disobedience as a necessary response. Here too, XR draws on a long and rich history: the civil rights movement in the US, the international anti-apartheid campaign, the Vietnam Moratorium and the Franklin River blockade all used similar tactics. </p>
<p>People of all ages are joining XR, and many are ready to be arrested in line with their convictions. A much larger number will stand behind them, showing support in a multitude of creative ways. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295369/original/file-20191003-49365-11ksujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295369/original/file-20191003-49365-11ksujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295369/original/file-20191003-49365-11ksujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295369/original/file-20191003-49365-11ksujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295369/original/file-20191003-49365-11ksujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295369/original/file-20191003-49365-11ksujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295369/original/file-20191003-49365-11ksujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295369/original/file-20191003-49365-11ksujy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The XR logo is simple and royalty-free.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/fgViiCEzdyw">Cull & Nguyen on Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://rebellion.earth/the-truth/demands/">XR has three demands</a>: tell the truth about what is happening to the planet and declare a climate emergency; act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025; reform democracy to create a citizens assembly on climate and ecological justice. </p>
<p>Whether XR’s creative processes, aesthetic choices and non-violent direct action can galvanise a shared vision and push climate politics in a new direction remains to be seen. The aesthetics of XR are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/26/va-to-display-collection-of-extinction-rebellion-artefacts">already on display</a> in a museum. Perhaps, 50 years from now, museums will commemorate its impact as a movement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123084/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Shiels is a volunteer artist with Extinction Rebellion.</span></em></p>Visual arts and performance have always been central to protest movements - but the unified branding of Extinction Rebellion shows a new approach to activism.Julie Shiels, Lecturer - School of Art, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/618442016-07-13T01:01:33Z2016-07-13T01:01:33ZLoss for words: Art, language and the challenges of living on a changing planet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130258/original/image-20160712-9292-1hwqqgv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Do we need a new word for the feeling of guilt one gets from watering plants during a drought?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ana_carrington/7154965156/in/photolist-bUg4Sd-pqyeud-7o4nJz-8KX2hP-6Sf8QS-pG4MYL-4Ur3Cr-pzww5W-4L9nAZ-dh6yqn-oVVF4s-6mUS9B-53KSw9-sq8Dhw-phLB8y-7MSrh1-qxDTg2-nAdkwg-pCoCw2-oHtEGj-jSgCRq-pJejFr-aCgBk9-dMYRuf-7TWgjo-eanbzJ-6rduwL-BthTPQ-gw6KMU-74FFEc-pFPRYr-o1JHzB-9Jr9kx-ut4y7U-oHbcAA-h3X6S5-rFjWAN-hDkSDw-inxXBG-5SjjZW-mxQGDN-q56uVb-p4hf1R-aAhxde-HBfSXL-piA2Ge-6jrzx2-eCefya-9emteh-9ho7LT">ana_carrington/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The common wisdom about climate change is that it’s <a href="http://science.time.com/2013/08/19/in-denial-about-the-climate-the-psychological-battle-over-global-warming/">too big and too abstract</a> for humans to comprehend, that it’s too hard to talk about. But it turns out many people are having tangible experiences of our changing environment. And they are eager to share, if they can find the right words.</p>
<p>At least that’s what <a href="http://aliciaescott.com/home.html">Alicia Escott</a> and <a href="http://creativecatalysts.org/testimonials/">Heidi Quante</a> are finding with their public participatory artwork, the <a href="http://bureauoflinguisticalreality.com/">Bureau of Linguistical Reality</a>. During salons they call field studies, Escott and Quante invite participants to develop new language for social and environmental change.</p>
<p>The bureau is one of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-for-a-new-age-of-enlightenment-why-climate-change-needs-60-000-artists-to-tell-its-story-58774">growing</a> number of artistic efforts motivated by climate change. It was created in response to the duo’s sense that we need words that can help us to contend with rapidly changing times.</p>
<p>Escott and Quante are not alone. British naturalist Robert Macfarlane recently struck a chord with his book “Landmarks” and related <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/27/robert-macfarlane-word-hoard-rewilding-landscape">article</a> that focuses on old words that are disappearing as the landscapes and communities that inspired them continue to shrink. In addition, writer and naturalist David Lukas has developed a <a href="http://www.languagemakingnature.com/">handbook</a> for creating words related to a changing natural world.</p>
<p>In interacting with the Bureau of Linguistical Reality and its work, I found that one of its most appealing aspects is its accessible, communal focus on feelings and experiences of the participants.</p>
<h2>Name that feeling</h2>
<p>As a scientist working on <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-would-it-take-to-end-californias-drought-46443">California’s ongoing drought</a>, I often run up against limitations in describing and attending to some of the new experiences that are emerging. One of those experiences for someone like me might be: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s an unusual stretch of warm, sunny winter days in January or February. But, rather than being able to enjoy the beautiful weather, a certain uneasiness arises with the feeling that it should be raining. It is, after all, the rainy season.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>How to describe that feeling of looming dread after years of drought? Some <a href="http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2016/03/01/the-horrible-no-good-very-bad-february-everyone-loved/">have tried</a>, but nobody really knows how. The drought and the heat have begun to test one of our core needs as humans: the ability to share our experiences.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130234/original/image-20160712-9292-1k3565v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130234/original/image-20160712-9292-1k3565v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130234/original/image-20160712-9292-1k3565v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130234/original/image-20160712-9292-1k3565v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130234/original/image-20160712-9292-1k3565v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130234/original/image-20160712-9292-1k3565v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130234/original/image-20160712-9292-1k3565v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130234/original/image-20160712-9292-1k3565v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Heidi Quante and Alicia Escott inviting participants to create new words to describe new feelings brought on by climate change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tomo Saito</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It wasn’t until gathering with others as part of the <a href="http://bureauoflinguisticalreality.com/2015/03/27/field-study-002-fresh-water-drought-and-farming/">bureau’s second field study</a> that it became clear how ubiquitous these kinds of feelings were becoming.</p>
<p>Admittedly, I showed up somewhat skeptically. But the bureau had brought together an impressive bunch that included linguists, journalists, artists and researchers to talk water and drought. After an awkward first half-hour hovering over a fruit plate, the evening got started with each person sharing a feeling or experience they wish there was a word for, maybe even putting forward a word they developed.</p>
<p>Quickly, one participant introduced the word “<a href="http://bureauoflinguisticalreality.com/portfolio/gwilt/">gwilt</a>” – a kind of double-bind caused by feeling guilty about watering house plants during the drought. That got the ball rolling.</p>
<p>After a wide-ranging discussion, the group homed in on a few experiences and words. The best words to describe mixed feelings about our hot and rainless winters? Escott and Quante had already coined the phrase “<a href="http://bureauoflinguisticalreality.com/portfolio/psychic-corpus-dissonance/">psychic corpus dissonance</a>,” a clunky but strangely appealing mouthful that gave us a great jumping-off point. Our group leaned toward “hangsty” or “happrehensive” – happy but filled with angst or apprehension.</p>
<p>In this process, new words are often cobbled together with old words, or words from other languages. Neologisms we tripped on along the way: “schadenFebruary” and “wetter-angst,” both English and German mash-ups.</p>
<p>From a psychological perspective, naming an experience and its attendant emotions can be a <a href="http://www.scn.ucla.edu/pdf/AL(2007).pdf">valuable way of contending</a> with it. In this case, the process of describing and giving words to felt experiences turned out to be fun and dizzyingly energizing, as well as deeply connective and inspiring. Realizing there was a collective response to what might have been perceived as individual events was validating and uniting.</p>
<h2>Making sense of a changing world</h2>
<p>There is a reason that many are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/01/generation-anthropocene-altered-planet-for-ever">looking to the arts and humanities</a> to help make sense of environmental change. In this case, it’s devising words to match our new experiences, but it could be a public art collaboration to convert a <a href="https://segd.org/participatory-public-art">parking space into a park</a> in San Francisco or a visit to Natalie Jeremijenko’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/health/12clin.html">Environmental Health Clinic</a> in New York to talk about personal environmental concerns like air and water quality. One of the many beauties of this type of participatory art in particular is its inclusive nature that allows anybody to contribute by emphasizing the experiential. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128913/original/image-20160630-30635-8sandu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128913/original/image-20160630-30635-8sandu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128913/original/image-20160630-30635-8sandu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128913/original/image-20160630-30635-8sandu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128913/original/image-20160630-30635-8sandu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128913/original/image-20160630-30635-8sandu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128913/original/image-20160630-30635-8sandu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of the words explored was visiting a place, like Venice, before it’s permanently altered by the effects of climate change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Copyright Mike DeSocio</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Escott and Quante are working to make their project <a href="https://bureauoflinguisticalreality.com/archived-reports/">widely accessible</a> and are taking their show on the road, which included a <a href="https://bureauoflinguisticalreality.com/2015/11/22/paris-field-studies/">pop-up event</a> at the Paris climate talks last year. They are also providing other people with the tools to hold their own field studies. It is important to note that because words can be generated by groups and from multiple languages, attribution and the potential for appropriation need to be considered. The Bureau of Linguistical Reality is endeavoring to figure out how best to appropriately credit words and provide context for their use.</p>
<p>After participating in a couple of bureau events now, I have to admit to being less interested in the actual words and more in the process of observing and naming what we are seeing. Giving people space to describe and <a href="https://theconversation.com/stretching-science-why-emotional-intelligence-is-key-to-tackling-climate-change-50654">express deep feelings</a> about things as challenging as climate change is vital. This collaborative process offers a way to make collective meaning out of not just scientific facts about our changing environment, but also our own experiences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61844/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Faith Kearns does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scientist dips her toe into a new form of group-based performance art: devising new words to describe new feelings and phenomena of a rapidly changing world.Faith Kearns, Water Analyst, California Institute for Water Resources, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural ResourcesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/587742016-06-07T20:18:52Z2016-06-07T20:18:52ZIt’s time for a new age of Enlightenment: why climate change needs 60,000 artists to tell its story<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125482/original/image-20160607-31942-1re6hn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A electric screen showing Shanghai Pudong financial area in a clear day, is seen amid heavy smog in Shanghai. What can art do to make climate change more real?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aly Song</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2013, one of the world’s leading public relations experts, <a href="http://bobpickard.com/biography/">Bob Pickard</a>, cried out to the climate world: “mobilise us!” In a <a href="http://bobpickard.com/the-climate-change-pr-disaster/">frustrated op-ed</a>, he listed 20 key problems with climate communication. One of them was “story fatigue”: bland stories with “highly repetitive and stale” themes. </p>
<p>Climate information is still often confusing, unengaging and absent from the wider public discourse. <a href="http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n3/full/nclimate2824.html">Linguistic</a> analysis found that the most recent IPCC report was less readable than seminal papers by <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/10/13/einstein-easier-to-understand-than-ipccs-climate-change-language-study-says.html">Einstein</a>. Last year, in America, climate news media coverage rates <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/03/07/study-how-broadcast-networks-covered-climate-ch/208881">dropped</a> despite the historical Paris Climate Summit and Pope Francis’ <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html">climate Encyclical</a>. </p>
<p>One key risk is complacency – a perception that the issue is now resolved. This is despite the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/23/science/global-warming-sea-level-carbon-dioxide-emissions.html?_r=0">risk increasing</a>, as our <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-energy-idUSKCN0XO16W">response lags</a>. </p>
<p>One <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378015000758">study</a> found that Australia had the highest percentage of climate sceptics in the world, (17% as compared to 12% in the USA). Analysis of <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2015/11/Pew-Research-Center-Climate-Change-Report-FINAL-November-5-2015.pdf">global attitudes in 2015</a> found that, while across the world, 54% of people considered climate change a “very serious problem,” in Australia this figure was only 43%.</p>
<p>Communicating the climate message to inform, but also engage and influence behaviour has proven intensely difficult. Over a decade of research on this issue has highlighted the need for communication to engage with people’s “deep frames” – beliefs formed over a lifetime, which are mostly subconscious.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125487/original/image-20160607-31966-3emmha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125487/original/image-20160607-31966-3emmha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125487/original/image-20160607-31966-3emmha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125487/original/image-20160607-31966-3emmha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125487/original/image-20160607-31966-3emmha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125487/original/image-20160607-31966-3emmha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125487/original/image-20160607-31966-3emmha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125487/original/image-20160607-31966-3emmha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A girl holds an umbrella over an ice sculpture, made from water taken from the Yellow, Yangtze and Ganges rivers, at an exhibition by Greenpeace.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jason Lee</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My research paper, recently published in <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.410/abstract">WIRES Climate Change</a> draws upon cognitive science, evolutionary psychology and philosophy, among other fields, to explore the emerging idea that global warming exceeds modern humans’ cognitive and sensory abilities.</p>
<p>To overcome this impasse, climate communication needs to engage people at a philosophical, sensory and feeling level. People need to be able to feel and touch the new climate reality; to explore unfamiliar emotional terrain and be helped to conceive their existence differently. </p>
<p>How is this to be done? The world must turn to its artists: storytellers, film-makers; musicians; painters and multi-media wizards, to name a few.</p>
<p>Under the global <a href="http://www.futureearth.org/projects">Future Earth</a> initiative, a team of around 60,000 scientists and social scientists has been assembled to understand and report on the physical, tangible dimensions of the problem. I argue we need 60,000 arts and humanities experts to focus upon the intangibles – the communication, engagement and meaning-making aspects of the problem. </p>
<p>Eco-philosopher <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/hyperobjects">Timothy Morton</a> has developed a new way of telling the climate story. He recasts global warming as a hyperobject – something which is “massively distributed in time and space relative to humans.” Its arrival, he has said, renders humans “weak, lame and vulnerable.”</p>
<p>Unlike the Anthropocene conception, which puts humans conspicuously at the center of the problem, the Hyperobject narrative pushes humans to the side. They are no longer “masters” of Earth, they are now subject to its whims. Human laws, institutions and other systems of responding to problems are, in the face of this “hyperobject”, revealed as trivial.</p>
<p>Artworks Morton discusses which capture this new “hyperobject” include <a href="http://papunyatula.com.au/yukultji-napangati-solo-exhibition/">Yukultji Napangati’s</a> depictions of an interconnected, “mesh-like” reality, Marina Zurkow’s <a href="http://www.o-matic.com/play/friend/mesocosmWINK/">Mesocosm</a> multi-media series which presents “nature” as being dynamic and interconnected with humans and <a href="http://www.wissenskunst.ch/uk/contemporary/2/">Cornelia Hesse-Honegger’s</a> microscopic bugs suffering radiation-induced deformities.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Screen shot of Marina Zurkow’s computer-driven animation Mesocosm (Wink, Texas)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course many artists are already grappling with climate change. <a href="http://www.artcop21.com/">ARTCOP21</a>, a gigantic global climate art festival, coincided with the Paris Climate talks, while the <a href="http://zkm.de/en/event/2016/04/globale-reset-modernity">Reset-Modernity</a> exhibition in Germany “offers a set of disorienting/reorienting procedures…” </p>
<p>Amitav Ghosh’s new novel <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo22265507.html">The Great Derangement</a> (2016) considers why modern humans seem disabled in the face of the climate threat. Olafur Eliasso’s installation art, <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/unilever-series-olafur-eliasson-weather-project">The Weather Project</a>, alludes to the prominent role the sun now has in the consciousness of the climate-aware citizen. </p>
<p>Australian artists are undertaking similar explorations. John Reid’s participatory performance art, <a href="http://www.artcop21.com/events/invitation-walking-the-solar-system/">Walking the Solar System</a> asks people to hold a frozen walking stance for one minute, during which time they imagine the Earth turning 1,800 kilometres. This helps them connect to planetary rather than human notions of existence, thereby perhaps starting to bridge the cognitive and sensory disconnect.</p>
<p>A collaboration of poetry, art and sculpture in the <a href="http://sharonfield.com.au/exhibition-on-the-verge/">On the Verge</a> exhibition revealed the global warming lived experience as a precarious one. Meanwhile, Gotye’s Eyes Wide Open music video contrasted pictures of present day industrialisation with images of the earth as a barren wasteland.</p>
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<p>The <a href="http://www.aehhub.org/">Australian Environmental Humanities</a> hub and <a href="http://climarte.org/">Climarte</a> help to network Australian creative responses to climate change, while the <a href="http://www.psi2016.com/">Performance Climates</a> event to be held in Melbourne this July, examines the role of performance art and theatre in responding to it. In November, Sydney will host the <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/environment-institute/events/global-ecologies-local-impacts-conference/">Global Ecologies – Local Impacts Conference</a>, which considers the Environmental Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.</p>
<p>But the scale of effort, when compared to the role artists have played in other significant societal shifts, is piecemeal.</p>
<p>Consider the artistic and cultural flourishing that accompanied the rise of Ancient Greece, supported by the agents of change Pericles and Alexander the Great. </p>
<p>Or the Islamic Golden Age of the 8th and 9th centuries, which saw a boom in both art and science. Or the Enlightenment, which featured arrays of great scientists, philosophers, musicians and artists such as Galileo; Newton; Descartes; Spinoza; Kant; Hobbes; Voltaire; Goya; Bach and Mozart.</p>
<p>If a new human civilisation is to emerge that can live within its ecological limits, artists and communicators must have a prominent place, alongside the great scientific and technological innovators of our times. </p>
<p>Humanity will never be able to defeat a threat it cannot perceive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58774/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This study has been supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) PhD Scholarship. Ms Boulton is a serving member of the Australian Army.</span></em></p>Climate change is such a big problem it’s almost impossible for us to really understand. We need artists to mobilise on a huge scale to render the problem comprehensible.Dr. Elizabeth Boulton, PhD Candidate, cross-disciplinary approaches to climate and environmental risk, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/587402016-05-04T20:20:33Z2016-05-04T20:20:33ZThe poster is political: how artists are challenging climate change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121139/original/image-20160504-11494-6nvkkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In our image saturated world we are becoming inured to the iconography of "natural" disasters.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ed Keith/flicker</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We all have a poster we remember. Mine was taped to a bookshop window in the Melbourne suburb of Prahran. A stark black and white image of a boy as young as I was then, about 13, stared out at me. He was naked from the chest up. He looked at me with sad eyes. The skin on the lower part of his face and neck had flowed into his chest. The scarring was horrific. The poster had two words on it. Above the boy, “Vietnam”, and below, “Napalm”. </p>
<p>Modern posters were invented at the end of the 19th Century. New lithographic printing technologies had just enabled the mass-production of colourful images on vast sheets of paper. These posters immediately became startling confrontations for the spectator and the flaneur and, eventually, commodities in their own right.</p>
<p>From advertising to propaganda, the best posters have a capacity to arrest attention, to disrupt, surprise and seduce. Even in an age dominated by social media, they still have the power to shock.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121131/original/image-20160504-13603-12fblwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121131/original/image-20160504-13603-12fblwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121131/original/image-20160504-13603-12fblwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121131/original/image-20160504-13603-12fblwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121131/original/image-20160504-13603-12fblwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121131/original/image-20160504-13603-12fblwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121131/original/image-20160504-13603-12fblwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121131/original/image-20160504-13603-12fblwl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Summer, Alfons Mucha, 1896.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">via Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The poster’s design is, at its best, art. In Paris at the close of the Belle Époque, Toulouse Lautrec’s voluptuous images of dancing women advertised the Moulin Rouge and the voyeuristic world of cabaret. Jules Cheret’s and Alfons Mucha’s ornate, tendril-haired beauties lured passers-by to drink, smoke, attend the theatre. During the first and second world wars, posters recruited the young and innocent to self-sacrifice and slaughter. After the wars, they recruited everyone to consume – movies, cars, clothes, cosmetics.</p>
<p>Over time, we have learnt to read the visual rhetoric of posters - their short-hand symbolic language - almost automatically. So much so that when Andy Warhol produced his iconic Campbell’s soup tin posters, he exploited and exploded the uncritical consumption of such image messages. He parodied and ironized simple advertising, cynically and humorously turning a design image into an uber-commodity that made nothing and everything “art”.</p>
<p>Posters also use the disruptive effect of (mis)placement to deliver their punch. The unexpected encounter at the tram stop or on a billboard engages you, forces you to look again at something – the stocking, the can of food, the inescapable face with longing eyes – in an unpredictable location.</p>
<p>Still, in our image-saturated world, repeated exposure to pictures of disasters and tragedies can generate a sort of compassion fatigue, well captured by the term “disaster porn”.</p>
<p>For artists, climate change poses two additional problems. Firstly, visualising its trends and processes is an extraordinary challenge. Its incremental shifts – the invisible accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere, the upward creep of average temperatures and sea levels, or declines in average rainfall – are largely hidden from us. All we see and experience are the symptoms, such as wild weather events.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121121/original/image-20160504-19847-1o3352j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121121/original/image-20160504-19847-1o3352j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121121/original/image-20160504-19847-1o3352j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121121/original/image-20160504-19847-1o3352j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121121/original/image-20160504-19847-1o3352j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121121/original/image-20160504-19847-1o3352j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121121/original/image-20160504-19847-1o3352j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121121/original/image-20160504-19847-1o3352j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jon Campbell, for Climarte.</span>
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</figure>
<p>Secondly, the numbing imagery of global warming’s physical impacts – melting icebergs, raging bushfires – diverts us from reflecting on global warming’s cultural implications.</p>
<p>How will we navigate a vanishing world? What images will our children’s picture books contain if many of the “charismatic” animals we take for granted are endangered or extinct? What stories will we tell our grandchildren if our familiar landscapes – our forests or beaches, for example – are destroyed or swept away? Again, how to visualise these changes without resorting to clichés and the familiar iconography of “natural” disasters?</p>
<p>Poster art is well equipped to surprise and provoke us to confront a future that is avoidable and to suggest others we might prefer.</p>
<p>Today, the <a href="http://climarte.org/">CLIMARTE Poster Projec</a>t will be launched in Melbourne. Eleven artists have been commissioned to design posters that will be plastered on walls across the city.</p>
<p>These posters are unpredictable images about an uncertain future. They are not straightforward “messages” selling you a concept or a product. Indirect, nuanced, and occasionally obscure in ways that advertising and propaganda rarely are, they force you to stop and puzzle. They are as strikingly out-of-place as wild weather.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121120/original/image-20160504-11494-12qa0sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121120/original/image-20160504-11494-12qa0sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121120/original/image-20160504-11494-12qa0sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121120/original/image-20160504-11494-12qa0sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121120/original/image-20160504-11494-12qa0sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121120/original/image-20160504-11494-12qa0sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121120/original/image-20160504-11494-12qa0sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121120/original/image-20160504-11494-12qa0sj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Siri Hayes, for Climarte.</span>
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<p>For instance, Siri Hayes’ The Southern Skies all a Swirl gives us the lyricism of the landscape at Toora in Victoria, laden with wind farms and hope. Yet it is over-written by gyres reminiscent of and quoting Van Gogh’s turbulent spirals. The visible world struggles against a menacing meteorological prospect. The cyclonic forces of climate change lurk just offshore.</p>
<p>By contrast, some of the other posters seem unusually heavy with words. Nature is, in a sense, always beyond us – an unknowable material reality lurking just outside our capacities to apprehend it, beyond the cultural fringe.</p>
<p>And so the fading letters in Jon Campbell’s Great Barrier Reef are as good a representation of nature, in one sense, as any other. The words’ erasure reminds us that even the little we think we know will vanish before we have seen enough of it to understand or depict it better. (It is an added bitter irony that the poster was in production as extreme ocean warming was bleaching corals along <a href="https://theconversation.com/great-barrier-reef-bleaching-is-just-one-symptom-of-ecosystem-collapse-across-australia-58579">much of the reef</a>.)</p>
<p>The caustically funny poster HazelShould seems straightforward but is equally slippery. For most of us, electricity is an abstraction, produced “invisibly” using coal that is burnt out of sight and therefore out of mind. Making the connections and cutting emissions, in an everyday sense, become that much harder to do.</p>
<p>So the artists Gabrielle de Vietri & Will Foster put a name and a face to the problem. By personalising Victoria’s Hazelwood power station - the worst polluting generator in the developed world - they also personalise the moral choices of politicians and others keeping this lethal antique going. Abstract no longer.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121118/original/image-20160504-6918-1c9u42k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121118/original/image-20160504-6918-1c9u42k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121118/original/image-20160504-6918-1c9u42k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121118/original/image-20160504-6918-1c9u42k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121118/original/image-20160504-6918-1c9u42k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121118/original/image-20160504-6918-1c9u42k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121118/original/image-20160504-6918-1c9u42k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121118/original/image-20160504-6918-1c9u42k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Angela Brennan, for Climarte.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, Angela Brennan’s The Future is Not What It Used To Be is subtle and oblique. Its graphic style nostalgically hints at “cooler times” in the 50s and 60s (as well as quoting Mondrian) and reflects on a past when the imaginable future didn’t include climate change’s particular option for planetary catastrophe. </p>
<p>Despite their considerable individuality, these posters embody a common artistic intent. They are simultaneously incitements to contemplation and to action. In them, we will find or recover something fragile, meditative, subtle, even beautiful, which also reminds us that to protect threatened fragility and beauty we must act now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58740/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Christoff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It is hard for us to visualise the trends and processes of climate change, which are largely hidden. But posters - with their richly subversive history - are the perfect medium for prompting contemplation and action.Peter Christoff, Associate Professor, School of Geography, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/411852015-05-06T19:49:45Z2015-05-06T19:49:45ZClimate science is looking to art to create change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80609/original/image-20150506-954-i3yfzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Soren Dahlgaard and the Maldives Exodus Caravan Show, Mobile Maldives, 2013.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">CLIMARTE</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Throughout history, the arts have played a major role in recording and reflecting the state of human society and the natural world in which society exists. Today, scientists and policy makers are struggling in some countries to gain the support that will lead to meaningful action on climate change and other environmental challenges.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/ipcc-fifth-assessment-report">A vast body of evidence</a> shows that human influences on the global climate are clear. Without rapid, substantial and sustained efforts to reduce human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases, we risk severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts on ecosystems and society.</p>
<p>Australia has been identified as one of the developed countries most at <a href="https://theconversation.com/ipcc-australia-and-new-zealand-face-greater-fire-and-flood-risk-damage-to-coral-reefs-24642">risk from the adverse impacts of climate change</a>. However, the Australian government is yet to announce its <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-authority-calls-for-30-emissions-cut-by-2025-40554">targets for addressing climate change beyond 2020</a>. Australia will join all other countries in <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-paris-climate-talks-wont-be-another-copenhagen-39591">Paris in December</a> to reach a new global agreement on responding to climate change.</p>
<p>It is against this background that the <a href="http://artclimatechange.org/">ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2015</a> festival of climate change-engaged arts and ideas was developed. Comprising curated exhibitions alongside a series of keynote lectures and forums featuring local and international guests, these events are attracting a broad audience and provide a clear intellectual space for discussion and dissemination of ideas.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80259/original/image-20150504-2103-1i1aoqj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80259/original/image-20150504-2103-1i1aoqj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80259/original/image-20150504-2103-1i1aoqj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80259/original/image-20150504-2103-1i1aoqj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80259/original/image-20150504-2103-1i1aoqj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80259/original/image-20150504-2103-1i1aoqj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80259/original/image-20150504-2103-1i1aoqj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80259/original/image-20150504-2103-1i1aoqj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2015 logo depicts data from the Bureau of Meteorology showing Melbourne’s minimum and maximum temperatures, rainfall, and wind speed for the year ending 31 October 2014. Globally 2014 was the hottest year on record.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">CLIMARTE</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Can art change the world?</h2>
<p>It is important to remember that while we need the rational, practical knowledge of science, we also need the unique personal, aesthetic responses that art provides. These responses can engage the personal values and emotions that are so crucial to motivate action.</p>
<p>An example of art driving social, political and environmental change is the photograph <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an6631500">Rock Island Bend 1979</a> by Peter Dombrovskis. Intended for inclusion in a photographic calendar for the Tasmanian Wilderness Society, Rock Island Bend was reproduced more than one million times as part of a campaign to save the Franklin and Lower Gordon Rivers from proposed dams. Rock Island Bend became the visual embodiment of the campaign to protect these rivers in the lead up to the 1983 Federal Election.</p>
<p>Rock Island Bend showed the Australian public what was at risk: a transcendent place, a wild and mysterious landscape, the Nature of our unconscious. Even though this was a place almost no one would visit, it was nevertheless too special, too beautiful to be destroyed. </p>
<p>Rock Island Bend played an important, some say a decisive, role in saving the Franklin and Gordon Rivers by raising awareness and garnering action that helped defeat the incumbent federal government.</p>
<p>Of course we cannot predict whether any particular work of art will contribute to such dramatic consequences, but the arts provide an important part of the cultural atmosphere that we all breathe. </p>
<p>Contemporary art, with its intimate connection to the time in which it arises, has the intellectual and creative capacity to be a powerful trans-disciplinary change agent, bringing together otherwise disparate fields of science, policy and politics.</p>
<h2>Art and science</h2>
<p>Artists such as David Buckland (UK), whose Cape Farewell organisation led expeditions of artists and scientists to the Arctic, Mandy Martin (AU) with her confronting evocation of coal mining impacts in NSW, and Amy Balkin (US) whose Public Smog project seeks to list the world’s atmosphere on the UNESCO World Heritage Register are some of the scores of Australian and international artists represented in <a href="http://artclimatechange.org/exhibitions/">twenty five exhibitions</a> in Melbourne and regional Victoria.</p>
<p>Public fora provide opportunities to engage with the artists and exchange views with a wide cross-section of the community. These include innovative approaches like <a href="http://artclimatechange.org/anthropslam/">anthropSLAM</a>, a <a href="http://artclimatechange.org/baby-its-hot-outside/">ThoughtLAB: Baby it’s hot outside</a>, set in 2050, and <a href="http://artclimatechange.org/festival-hub/">the Maldives Exodus Caravan Show</a>. </p>
<p>AnthropSLAM is like speed-dating artists; leading local and international artists each present a 1-3 minute pitch about an artwork they’ve submitted to the <a href="http://nelson.wisc.edu/che/anthroslam/">Anthropocene Cabinet of Curiosities</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.carltonconnect.com.au/event-thoughtlab-14-baby-its-hot-outside/">ThoughtLab</a> on 12 May asks a guest panel to interact with the audience to dream alternative futures and respond to a record heatwave in Melbourne in 2050 that throws the city into chaos. </p>
<p>The Maldives Exodus Caravan Show is in Federation Square until 17 May. The caravan and inflatable island focus on the current political unrest in the Maldives and resonate with the plight of low lying Pacific island states in the face of climate change.</p>
<p>Critical and creative thinking by both artists and curators provide a unique and innovative way to engage with both the challenges and opportunities arising from climate change. In a conversation that is so often bogged down in party politics and ideological orthodoxy, ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE will develop new alliances across geographical borders, academic disciplines and social demographics, and may just provide the catalyst that can prick our collective conscience.</p>
<p><em>This article was co-authored by Guy Abrahams, CEO and co-founder of CLIMARTE.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41185/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Karoly receives receives funding from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science. He also shares in funding from the European Commission for his role as a Research Director in the EU Centre on Shared Complex Challenges at the University of Melbourne. He is a member of the Climate Change Authority and the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.</span></em></p>Scientists and policy makers are struggling in some countries to gain the support that will lead to meaningful action on climate change. Could art be the answer?David Karoly, Professor of Atmospheric Science, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.