Art for Climate Change
Posted on July 15, 2010 by Amelia Woodside
Visions of today's world work to sustain tomorrow's planet. Photo: NASA Goddard Photo and Video (flickr)
How do you create and sustain a movement around climate change? Why not use art, suggests writer and environmental activist Bill McKibben.
"We need a big movement, and big movements come from beauty and meaning, not columns of statistics,” writes McKibben for the Huffington Post.
That's why McKibben's nonprofit 350.org and Planet Mag are working with contemporary artists to create visual interpretations of Earth to build awareness around climate change and sustainable living. Ten percent of the proceeds are going to Charity: Water, which works to provide safe drinking water to the poor. You can check out pieces by Chris Scarborough and Allison Schulnik — among others — here.
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Sitting on the porch of a
Sitting on the porch of a hostel in Central Kenya, a grown man told me that climate change was a government conspiracy. I would have laughed if it didnt make me so sad. Indeed we need a big movement. There are many examples of when visual, performance, and auditory art have not simply been used to comment, but also to catalyze social change. No history text can make us remember civil rights struggle like "A Change Gonna Come." No statistics on Chinese authoritarianism speak as loudly as the photo of the man standing up to the tanks at Tiananmen square. Lets hope this can be the start of something.
I can see nothing wrong with
I can see nothing wrong with there being more art the the world!
What I like most about McKibben's proclamation is the conversation that (I assume) his statement seeks to ignite. Perhaps communities, large and small, though art, can build a conversation through the soft, subjective generalities of art's malleable definitions and create a dialogue in which specifics are deconstructed and discussed in not only a communal way, but a newer, more cordial way, including the individualized emotions and feelings evoked by art for the greater, necessary good of us all adopting a more sustainable lifestyle.
Peace and Light,
H Dawg.
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