In the Art House this month, you will meet Lindsay Linsky. A Bible-believing Christian in Georgia, she is the author of the book, Keep It Good: Understanding Creation Care through Parables. With her book, she seeks to break through environmental apathy and partisan noise to show Christians God’s simple yet beautiful message of creation stewardship.
As a teacher, Lindsay Linsky understands how challenging it is to correct misinformation, and she recognizes the power of stories to engage people with new ideas. In this episode, she shares practical insights and a very powerful Bible verse that highlights the call to creation care.
Lindsay Linsky has been featured in panel discussions at theology conferences as well as podcasts and webinars on Creation Care Radio, Yale Climate Connections, and RepublicEN’s The EcoRight Speaks podcast.
Lindsay earned her PhD in Science Education with a focus on environmental education and ocean literacy from the University of Georgia, and lives with her husband and children in Suwanee, Georgia.
Next month: Marissa Slaven talks about her novel, “Code Blue,†an eco-mystery.
As host of Citizens’ Climate Radio, Peterson Toscano regularly features artists who address climate change in their work. The Art House section of his program includes singer/songwriters, visual artists, comics, creative writers, and playwrights. Through a collaboration with Artists and Climate Change and Citizens’ Climate Education, each month Peterson reissues The Art House for this blog. If you have an idea for The Art House, contact Peterson: radio @ citizensclimatelobby.org
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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.
Inspire the conversation on the climate challenge with Climanosco
Climanosco’s mission is to make climate science accessible to everyone.
We support researchers and citizens around the world in paraphrasing climate research so that it is readily understandable to a broad audience, and we collaborate with artists and activists who create work that inspires and elevates the conversation on climate change and related societal challenges.
Now, we are pleased to announce our second call for artists and activists in concert with our call for scientific manuscripts. We invite you to join our efforts with this year 2021 call “Oceans on the rise†around the effects of climate change on the oceans.
We welcome art works of all styles, artistic, artivist and activist initiatives, art & science collaborations and everything in between.
Participation offers:
The opportunity to share your art work with a new, diverse audience
The presentation of your art work in this year’s DEAR2050 exhibition
The sale of prints of your art work in our online shop
The chance to have an impact on the public discourse about the climate challenge.
The chance to win exciting prizes (jury selection)
The deadline for finalizing works is 31 August 2021. Please notify us of your intention to participate with your proposal as soon as possible but no later than 25 March 2021.
We look forward to hearing from you! The Climanosco team
Who can participate?
We welcome participants across all forms of arts and activism and across all career stages.
First, notify us of your intent to participate (deadline 25 March 2021)
a description or a sketch of your project for this call;
your portfolio or an example of your art work or activist work.
The selection for the exhibition will be based on the submitted proposals.
By sending a notification of intent, you indicate that you commit to create a piece of art by the due date (see below) that will satisfy the following conditions:
it is original and signed by you;
it is specifically created for this call;
its format reasonably allows digitalization and shipping;
Climanosco is granted the right to produce and sell copies of the work.We will be in touch with you within a few days of receiving your proposal.
Send your original work (deadline 31 August 2021) We suggest that you keep us updated as you progress on your project and we expect that you finalize it by 31 August 2021.Once your art work is finalized, please get in touch with us at dear2050@climanosco.org. We will organize shipping and digitization with you.
Prizes After reception of all works, a jury will be elected by the Board of Directors to choose the winners and award prizes for the best works. The prizes are as follows:
First prize: CHF 1000
Second prize: CHF 500
Third prize: CHF 500
The cash prizes will be sent to the winners by bank transfer. It is the responsibility of the participants to make sure that they have access to a bank account where the prizes can be deposited. It is the responsibility of the winners to declare the prizes to the tax authorities in their country.
Climanosco was launched in 2015 with the vision that we can all play a part in addressing the climate challenge – and that a first step towards doing so is to make the best knowledge about climate science accessible to everyone. Find out more at www.climanosco.org/about/.
We work with climate scientists and citizens to create collections of accessible and reliable climate research articles. Browse through our research articles at www.climanosco.org/research-articles/. Further, we collaborate with artists, activists and scientists on creating interdisciplinary projects to raise awareness to climate change and to develop visions of a sustainable world.
Disclaimer
We might have to adjust the deadlines for the submission of the notifications of intent and the submissions of artworks depending on the responses we receive. All participants will be notified in due time of any such adjustments.
Climanosco will make all efforts to sell in its own capacity the original and prints of the art works submitted for this call for artists. However, this comes without any warranty of any kind. Climanosco does not take any responsibility and cannot be made liable in the event where it may be unable, for any reason, to sell a piece of art submitted for this call for artists.
Robin Wall Kimmerer helps us to understand how humans can be important parts of living systems in our interactions with other living things (Braiding Sweetgrass). Gary Snyder discusses ‘reinhabitants’. Barry Lopez identifies three qualities that are for him critical in indigenous peoples’ ways of living.
…three qualities – paying intimate attention; a storied relationship to a place rather than a solely sensory awareness of it; and living in some sort of ethical unity with a place… (Barry Lopez, ‘We are shaped by the sound of wind, the slant of sunlight’. High Country News, 1998)
ecoartscotland is looking to commission a response to or reflection on the book Earth Writings. The four practices highlighted all offer very different ways of thinking about art practice from conventional constructions. If you are interested please send a short note outlining your interest with links to two relevant pieces of your own writing to chris [at]fremantle [dotorg] .
Earth Writings (2020) is a richly illustrated arts book of essays, artwork, and exhibition vignettes that explore a range of Irish environments — Bogs, Forests, Fields, Gardens — through four artists creative practices. Written as an invitation to think and act differently about our current earth crises, readers learn how healthier places and worlds can be made through the work of MONICA DE BATH, CATHY FITZGERALD, PAULINE O’CONNELL and SEOIDÃN O’SULLIVAN, artists working in southwest Ireland who, to borrow Donna Haraway’s (2016) words, ‘stay with the trouble’. Scholars PATRICK BRESNIHAN, NESSA CRONIN, GERRY KEARNS and KAREN E. TILL, respectively, engaged with the artists and collaborated to write short essays that reflect upon the artists’ embedded ecological and social practices that make ‘kin in lines of inventive connections’ (Haraway, 2016). Introductions by LUCINA RUSSELL (Kildare County Council Arts Service) and Karen E. Till (Maynooth University Department of Geography), with a short inset of 2019 exhibition images and artist’s statements.
ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.
rad is a paid eight-month traineeship with a Scottish independent TV production company.
rad is a fantastic opportunity for anyone who would love to work in television but hasn’t been able to find a way in or has faced a barrier to entry. Whether that barrier has been through race, disability or economic background, rad was created to dissolve those barriers.
It’s time to forget the “who you know†rule, we want to know you!
What’s more, our host production companies are dedicated to supporting you throughout the programme. You’ll also have team TRC on hand to support you throughout the whole experience, we will be there to steer you through.
The deadline for applications is Friday 19th February.
rad is a paid eight-month traineeship with a Scottish independent TV production company.
rad is a fantastic opportunity for anyone who would love to work in television but hasn’t been able to find a way in or has faced a barrier to entry. Whether that barrier has been through race, disability or economic background, rad was created to dissolve those barriers.
It’s time to forget the “who you know†rule, we want to know you!
What’s more, our host production companies are dedicated to supporting you throughout the programme. You’ll also have team TRC on hand to support you throughout the whole experience, we will be there to steer you through.
The deadline for applications is Friday 19th February.
Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.
In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.
We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.
Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:
Changing their own behaviour; Communicating with their audiences; Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.
Aris Pretelin-Esteves is a Mexican vegan scenographer and scenic artist who cares deeply about animals, plants, insects, humans, objects and places. Her work is about understanding herself as an artist with social responsibility and as part of a community. She creates open scenographic actions that promote opportunities for humans and nature to connect with one another and participate in the recovery of public spaces. Her materials include waste, the discarded and the abandoned.
How did your interest in Ecoscenography and sustainable theatre production begin?
It is almost like one day I woke up and realised that I was surrounded by garbage. I went out to the street and saw trees dying from lack of water, their roots breaking through the concrete. I got to the park and there was no grass, there were no flowers, there was nowhere to sit. Everywhere I turned there was garbage. I realised then that there was no sense in continuing to create, especially if the only thing I saw on the way to the theatre was death, neglect, concrete and bad smells!
What is the meaning of doing theatre if we are trapped inside creating fictional worlds while ours is falling apart? This question is what prompted me to look for ways to generate projects that could transform our dying city into one that was full of life. I started by reimagining the city as scenography, one in which we can all participate. I began to consider waste and ruin as possibilities for creation and artistic production. Since then, I have started incorporating these ideas into my work and forging a new path of creation that continues today.
Photo by Vaiva Bezahan, 2019.
What does Ecoscenography mean to you? How do you define it (for yourself and others)?
In my opinion, Ecoscenography is a way of thinking about myself as a scenographer as well as taking an inclusive approach to artistic production. It is not only about recycling or using waste materials. For me, it is a way of conceiving the scene, as well as the management, materialisation and transformation of the processes involved.
Ecoscenography also implies placing myself within my own urban context and accepting the responsibility that this entails. Working with community requires a diagnosis of needs: to engage in reflection and collective dialogue; to imagine alternatives for transformation; and to foster care in the way we live and inhabit spaces. Ecoscenography is a political-artistic position.
Ecoscenography offers a change in perspective that displaces pragmatic ideas of scenographic creation and proposes a horizontal, collective, transdisciplinary and participatory approach to making openly sourced and accessible works. This means that Ecoscenographers understand scenography and theatricality as a means of social, political, artistic and environmental transformation.
Photo by Aris Pretelin-Esteves, 2019
Can you tell me about TEJIDOS?
TEJIDOS is a project created with, for and by the community. It involves several scenographic actions that seek to transform urban green spaces into inclusive gathering places and aims to reverse the neglect and devastation that surrounds us.
TEJIDOS begins with the donation and recycling of discarded garments that participants later transform, weave, design and install in a green area of the city. The fabric acts as a guiding axis for the project and is a metaphor for the multiple networks that connects us to the environment and the broader world. The scenography for TEJIDOS is created collectively, and participants undertake a journey during which the green space and its surroundings are perceived from different points of view, unveiling the history-memory of the space and therefore, its natural liveliness. In creating a collective, tactile, and memorable experience, a convivial bond is woven, fostering a sense of care for our green spaces.
Photo by Vaiva Bezahan, 2019.
Knitting and weaving are simple somatic actions that, by their continuous repetition, relaxes the body and encourages participants to listen and engage in dialogue with one another. These conversations and ideas are subsequently shared with institutions, committees, and neighbourhood associations to generate agreements and actions that will transform and take care of green spaces in the long term.
TEJIDOS responds to a ‘Povera’ aesthetic, seeking the transformation of waste materials by exposing them to a natural environment that modifies and activates them and creates a sense of meaning. The richness of the project lies in its ability to promote ‘encounter-spaces’ for collective action – to regenerate the social fabric and to resist the social-environmental crisis that we are experiencing right now in Mexico.
Photo by Aris Pretelin-Esteves, 2019
What were some of the biggest hurdles that you have had to tackle on realising the project? What are you most proud of?
It is not common to have these kinds of projects in Mexico. Usually, they are either social or artistic, not both. Scenographers are generally trained as creators who are unaccustomed to letting other people take part in their designs and the relationships can be very hierarchical. In addition, we don’t really have an environmentally responsible culture. So, no one found it attractive to weave a scenography with recycled clothing, or to create an installation with people from the community. The truth is, nobody really understood it, at least to begin with. They wanted to know why I was doing it and what was it all for? And what was I going to gain with all that? And they could not categorise it! No one understood if it was a play, a workshop, an installation, or a social intervention. I answered that yes, it was all that!
Photo by Carlos Casasola. 2019
Nevertheless, Pamela-Eliecer Badallo and I started the project without funding and without support. We were invited to PQ2019 so we joined our friends and colleagues Priscila Imaz, Nurydia Briseño and Jorge Hernández to start a garment donation campaign with neighbours, family, friends, schools and universities. We offered weaving workshops, and eventually many people who were not related to the theatre industry began to approach us, to support us with donations, and to talk about TEJIDOS with other people. And then, suddenly it became huge!
Many people started proposing ideas, donating materials, helping to structure the project and to assist in weaving. Soon colleagues who I had not spoken to for a long time appeared. Estela Fagoaga helped us to materialise the costumes, Miranda Aguayo supported with the realization of headdresses and costume details, the team of ‘Emprendedores Culturales’ supported us with the management of resources and Alma Carrascosa financed part of the project. Finally, we travelled to Prague carrying 200kg of fabric. And in the end, it was amazing!
During the last 3 years, we have met with Biologists, Social Workers, Professional Weavers, Photographers, Videographers who have enriched the project with their work and continue transforming it within the green areas in which we weave. I am proud that we have managed to bring together so many people to engage in meaningful conversations and create artistic works that are kinder to the environment and foster a better coexistence with humans and nature. I honestly don’t see myself working in any other way.
Photo by Carlos Casasola. 2019.
What tips would you give to a scenographer/theatre maker who is exploring sustainable practice for the first time?
Always be consistent with what you believe. Your ethical stance is what will give meaning and validity to your proposal.
Do not believe it when someone tells you that what you do does not make sense or is not valuable.
Research is the basis of sustainability. If you don’t test and explore enough, you won’t have good results. Take time to investigate your materials, try things out until you get the desired result.
Recycling is not enough. All material requires a transformation process, to develop greater possibilities for manipulation and therefore, creation.
Talk about your work. Eventually there will be someone interested that will support you.
Look beyond the black box. Scroll and look for ideas across other disciplines.
What is your next project?
COVID19 has revealed the importance of more suitable public spaces in Mexico. Tejidos has continued with some virtual interventions in the community with the intention of doing residencies in town halls and green areas as soon as we have the possibility. I firmly believe that we still have much work to do. There are many spaces to transform, many memories to recover and many communities to weave together. On another note, we have also been working on a project called ‘Continuous Stops – How to waste time in a city without time’ where we explore immobility as a resistance to a city that forces you to move forward regardless of social and environmental consequences.
Ecoscenography.com has been instigated by designer Tanja Beer – a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, Australia, investigating the application of ecological design principles to theatre.
Tanja Beer is a researcher and practitioner in ecological design for performance and the creator of The Living Stage – an ecoscenographic work that combines stage design, permaculture and community engagement to create recyclable, biodegradable and edible performance spaces. Tanja has more than 15 years professional experience, including creating over 50 designs for a variety of theatre companies and festivals in Australia (Sydney Opera House, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Queensland Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Arts Centre) and overseas (including projects in Vienna, London, Cardiff and Tokyo).
Since 2011, Tanja has been investigating sustainable practices in the theatre. International projects have included a 2011 Asialink Residency (Australia Council for the Arts) with the Tokyo Institute of Technology and a residency with the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (London) funded by a Norman Macgeorge Scholarship from the University of Melbourne. In 2013, Tanja worked as “activist-in-residence†at Julie’s Bicycle (London), and featured her work at the 2013 World Stage Design Congress (Cardiff)
Tanja has a Masters in Stage Design (KUG, Austria), a Graduate Diploma in Performance Making (VCA, Australia) and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne where she also teaches subjects in Design Research, Scenography and Climate Change. A passionate teacher and facilitator, Tanja has been invited as a guest lecturer and speaker at performing arts schools and events in Australia, Canada, the USA and UK. Her design work has been featured in The Age and The Guardian and can be viewed at www.tanjabeer.com
Since 2013 Green Tease has provided a platform for those interested in teasing out the links between the arts, climate change and environmental sustainability through the exchange of ideas, knowledge and practices.Â
We are currently looking for ideas for creative events connecting the arts and environmentalism to be run as part of the Green Tease events programme across April 2021-March 2022. These events would be micro-funded by and organised in collaboration with us, Creative Carbon Scotland.
These events should be free, open to people from both arts and environment backgrounds, and as accessible and environmentally sustainable as possible in design. We do not usually support events that are primarily of use only to artists or only to sustainability practitioners; these are also useful, but they just are not the focus of Green Tease. Have a read through our events archiveand Green Tease reflection blogs to find out more about past events.
We welcome creative and non-standard approaches and formats. We have a particular interest in addressing issues of climate justice, but there are no restrictions on theme or subject matter so long as it is relevant to our audiences. Events should be accessible and inclusive; our expectations here are laid out in our Safe Working Spaces Statement.
We will work with you in collaboration to organise the event. Although there is some budget attached, this is primarily an opportunity to work with us rather than a funding opportunity.
About the Collaboration
What we are looking for from you:
An idea
Your skills and expertise
And what we are offering:
Our experience organising events
Technical and administrative support
Audiences and publicity channels
Feedback and evaluation
We can also contribute on average £400 to the budget for each event, which could be used to cover:
Event hire
Materials
Catering
Speaker fees
If you are a freelancer or not currently employed, the budget can also be used to cover time you spend working on the event
Events should be compatible with COVID-19 safety regulation. This may involve:
Events run entirely online
Events with options for in-person or digital participation
Events held outdoors
Events planned to adjust at short notice to a changing context
How to Apply
Please submit your application through the following form by 1st March 2021 and we will get back in touch by 15th March 2021. We will choose our favourite proposals based on the following selection criteria:
What expertise would you bring?
Is the idea strong, relevant, innovative, or different from what we have done before?
How realistic is the idea, based on budget and time constraints?
Have accessibility and sustainability considerations been carefully considered?
Does the proposal fit with our aims as an organisation?
Can we add value by being involved?
We particularly welcome applications from ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, people from working class backgrounds and any others who may face barriers to involvement in the arts or environmentalism.
We will choose up to five ideas to work with but may choose less. We will provide feedback to anyone whose idea is not chosen. If we choose to work with you, we will set up an online meeting to discuss things with you and talk through how we can work together. If you have any questions, please email lewis.coenen-rowe@creativecarbonscotland.com.
Creative Carbon Scotland will only use the information you provide to contact you about the Green Tease Call for Collaborators and for records directly relevant to this project. Information will be stored securely and will not be shared with any third parties.
(Top photo: Images from 4 previous Green Tease events: A group in conversation, people standing in a field, an audience listening to a speaker, a group writing and drawing together. Text reads: Green Tease Call for Collaborators: Work with us to create an event connecting the arts and environmental sustainability.)
Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.
In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.
We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.
Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:
Changing their own behaviour; Communicating with their audiences; Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.
CONFRONTING THE CLIMATE CRISIS IN ITS OWN VERNACULAR
Materiality is one of the key components of a work of visual art. It changes the way that we interact with a piece, adds dimension to what the artist is trying to say and how, and can even have a voice of its own. Classic examples include Jackson Pollock’s “drip technique†of painting, which creates a sense of sick and visceral emotion with its swirling, thick, humanly inhuman globs of paint. Diane Arbus’s flat and highly contrasting photography creates a thin portal between the everyday normal and the everyday abnormal. Alexander Calder’s mobiles, made of delicate cuts of sheet metal suspended and attached to mechanically-activated mechanisms, are careful forays into an industrializing modern world in which man and nature were becoming increasingly intertwined.
Contemporary artists engaging with environmental concerns would do well to employ the vernacular of the climate crisis by incorporating petroleum into their repertoire of materials. While there are artist collectives, like Liberate Tate, that have utilized oil as a means of performance art activism, there are, at present, only a very small number of artists using petroleum as an art material beyond an explicitly activist context.
When they do, their approach speaks to more abstract powers than fossil fuel corporations themselves: concepts like colonialism, life and death, family and immigration. It is also worth noting that all of these examples, like the demonstrations of Liberate Tate, were originally shown in London. I have yet to locate pieces featuring petroleum as art material elsewhere, beyond some amateur works being produced by a Russian craftsman.
The first crude oil piece that I encountered, and the only one that I’ve seen in person, is Kader Attia’s Oil and Sugar #2 (2007). It is a four-and-a-half-minute video that details the collapse of a large cube of stacked smaller sugar cubes after black crude oil is poured on. I found it quite emotionally impactful, and it first catalyzed my thinking about petroleum and its unique potential as an art material. The piece, however, does not critique petroleum companies per se. Rather, it is to be read as criticism of two of the main drivers of colonialism – sugar cane and oil – and is a visual representation of a global dance that propels domination and subjugation.
Richard Wilson, 20:50 (1987), Saatchi Gallery. The surface of the oil is so reflective that it appears like a mirror in this image.
Richard Wilson’s 20:50 (1987) is the most art-historically famous petroleum work. In the piece, an entire floor of the Saatchi Gallery in London was flooded with used “sump oil.â€The work displays the balance between that which is toxic and that which is beautiful, evoking the failings of the human condition. Visually, the piece is stunning and smooth. It beckons not only the gaze, but also the touch of the viewer. However, sensorially, it emits a terrible stench and the glass-like depths of its darkness, when touched, are sticky and stain.
Shih Hsiung Chou’s petroleum-plexiglass sculptures fill clear receptacles like domes, frames, coffins, television screens, and pillars with sump oil. Chou’s works were, initially at least, were less a remark on human nature than they were on the state of being human. The pieces seek to emphasize the connectivity between people and the ancient animals and plants whose bodies form the oil that we use to construct and power our society.
Soheila Sokhavari takes inspiration from her family photos of pre-revolutionary Iran, and captures them in petroleum. Her oil works are blurred sepia portraits, with details and faces painfully missing, suggesting that these memories of Sokhavari’s are painfully and incompletely recalled. Her pieces comment, then, on the trauma of a forgotten past and a painful present, a present created by international and domestic disputes over the most valuable commodity of her homeland: oil.
All of these pieces demonstrate the complexity, the nuance, and, ultimately, the power of petroleum as an art material. It is up to future visual artists, however, to utilize petroleum more boldly and widely. There is a great opportunity for artists in more countries, especially countries in which oil has more profoundly wrecked environments and propelled economies, to utilize this material language. At the same time, there is more opportunity for visual artists to speak more directly and powerfully to the perpetrators of petroleum-based violence – to its safekeepers, to the willfully ignorant, to the blissfully unaware.
(Top image: Kader Attia, Oil and Sugar #2 (still), 2007. Single-channel video (color, sound), 4:30 minutes. Courtesy the artist, Galerie Nagel Draxler, and Lehmann Maupin. Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.)
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Ariana Akbari is the founder of Climate Justice Texas, an environmental advocacy program based in Southeast Texas, the heart of the oil and gas economy. She studied the History of Art & Architecture and the Comparative Study of Religion at Harvard College, with side jaunts at the University of Houston Hines College of Architecture and the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies. She is passionate about corporate transparency, effectively-built spaces and community programs, and regionally-rooted art & design.Â
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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.
Happy New Year! So much has already happened this year, and it’s only February 1. After an insurrection at the national capitol, there’s a pending POTUS impeachment trial. Meanwhile, the pandemic rages on and vaccine roll-out has been, well, less than ideal. With so much to rally and advocate for, climate change can get lost in the shuffle. But it isn’t going away. That’s one reason why I asked Doug Parsons, creator and host of the podcast America Adapts, to be my first interview of the year.
Doug is a climate adaptation specialist who’s worked in Queensland, Australia and as the first Climate Change Coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Knowing that storytelling is key to climate action, he launched America Adapts. Every episode features a conversation with a different kind of adaptation professional – professors, journalists, urban planners, and even yours truly, have made appearances. The podcast gives narrative shape and fascinating insight into the nuanced and often scientific work of climate specialists. More recently, Doug has taken his storytelling and media expertise to Cimpatico TV, a San Francisco start-up, where he hosts a live talk-show on their climate channel.
I spoke with Doug about why he launched America Adapts, what he thinks the future of climate podcasting looks like, and what he hopes listeners and viewers will take away from his creative media projects.
What inspired you to launch your podcast? Was it a climate-related event? Or perhaps something more personal?
Since I joined the climate workforce, a long, long time ago, I’ve been obsessed with trying to communicate the issue of climate change. I quickly went into the field of climate adaptation. In case you’re not familiar with the topic, it just means how society is going to adapt to all the impacts of climate change no matter what we do to reduce our carbon emissions. That said, we need to reduce those emissions! We’re going to have impacts like sea-level rise, extreme heat, drought and much more, so we need to prepare to adapt to those changes.
That’s the area I’ve spent most of my career on and I’ve become obsessed with trying to communicate this huge issue to the public. It’s become politicized, so communicating the issue is that much harder. That’s why I started the podcast. If you’re a podcast listener, you recognize that it’s a great way to learn things.
What kinds of guests do you have on, and what do you discuss?
My typical guests have backgrounds in adaptation. I’ll talk to professors, journalists, practitioners, urban planners, you name it; if they are doing work related to adapting to climate change, I’m interviewing them. The goal is to share their expertise and experiences with my listeners. I’ve talked to climate activists of color working in the New Orleans area. That was truly an eye-opening experience. I had the pleasure of interviewing Quentin Bell, a Trans-man, and learning how his community is uniquely vulnerable to climate change. I’ve interviewed prominent politicians, climate scientists, among many others. I feel very lucky to talk with those folks. On occasion I go somewhat off topic. For example, you (Amy Brady) have been on three times to talk about climate fiction! I’ve also spoken to a professional climate skeptic, which was a bonkers and enlightening conversation.
I also like to talk more broadly about climate communication so I might have someone on to talk about that. Those are always fun conversations. I also have journalists on because they’re doing really important work. Sometimes I get sponsored to go on location. The podcast has taken me to Africa, Australia and all over the U.S. Obviously, because of the pandemic, I’m not doing any travel now, but I’m hoping by the end of 2021 I’ll get back to it. I did an episode on urban forestry in New York City that was super fun. I was taken all over the city and got to learn how their urban forests are helping the city adapt to climate change.
What do you hope listeners take away from America Adapts?
America Adapts is not a doom-and-gloom podcast. I want my listeners to feel like there’s something that we can do. Even though the challenges of climate change are going to be severe in the coming decades, there are things that we can do today to get ready for it. There’s warming baked into the system, so as I said before, even if we reduced our carbon emissions – which we have to do – we can expect rising seas, extreme heat, and many more unpredictable impacts. We have to adapt our society. I want my listeners to know that the people I interview are doing things today to deal with these issues (and I hope some of my listeners join the fray!). Adapting deals with issues like managed retreat (we’ll have to abandon some cities near the coast, but hopefully in a managed way), maladaptation, and nature-based solutions. There’s a lot of exciting work going on and the people I interview are doing it! I want my listeners to feel empowered that in the face of climate change, which typically has such a negative narrative around it, there’s stuff that we can do.
Why is the podcast format a good venue for climate storytelling?
A lot of people are audio learners, so podcasts are are great medium for that. I think each of us gets comfortable with our favorite podcasts because of the style of the host or the show format. It’s like an old, comfortable blanket. And so if we can learn a bit about climate change on such a platform, then all the better. Since it’s so easy to record these podcasts with people all over the world, that accessibility makes it easier to share this knowledge. It’s not like making a good TV show or a movie, which usually requires a lot of people and a lot of resources. Podcasts can be developed by a single person (I guess some movies can too). It really is empowering to know that you can produce something on your own, get it published relatively cost-free, and if it’s great content, people around the world are going to find it and find value in it. That is just an amazing thing. I’ve had a listener in Mongolia contact me and tell me she really enjoys the show. Didn’t see that coming.
Photo by Jeff Parsons
Please tell us about your work with Cimpatico. How does it extend the work you do on America Adapts, and how does it differ?
Cimpatico is a new tech startup out of San Francisco. Think Twitch meets LinkedIn. They recruited me to be their first host and partner. They’ve created a whole climate adaptation channel where I get to interview people from around the world working on climate issues. It’s a bit broader than the podcast in that I talk to people engaged with a wide spectrum of climate-related topics like renewable energy, carbon reduction, and other areas of climate mitigation that I don’t cover in the podcast. It’s been interesting to expand the spectrum of experts I get to talk to. I’ve done over 170 interviews with a lot more planned. We’re looking at building a community around these issues as we do these interviews. At the moment, we’re focusing on being more like a TV production studio but looking to expand the community in the coming year. I thought the podcast exposed me to some really cool work but the team at Cimpatico has been recruiting guests from around the world. Its goal is to expand into all sorts of different topics like robotics, public health, insurance and much more.
What does the future of climate podcasting look like from your perspective? Is this a space that’s growing? Is there a growing audience for these kinds of podcasts?
I recently had a conversation with Amy Westervelt of the Drilled podcast about this topic. We both observed that there are a lot more climate podcasts that have come around in the last year. (Staying home during a pandemic drove some of this). She and I are old-timers in that we’ve been doing it for three to four years. I think you’re going to get a lot more diversification in the type of podcasts out there. Maybe we’ll get some regional podcasts that focus on climate impacts in a particular area. Maybe we’ll also get an urban planner starting their own climate podcast, a farmer focusing on the agricultural sector, or an artist starting their own climate podcast. Climate change is going to touch us in ways we can’t even predict, and I think podcasts are flexible enough to allow new voices to come online. I think with the Biden administration coming into power, there will be more focus in general on climate change, so we’re likely to see a lot more people coming into the climate podcast space to talk about what’s going on. I think that’s all very encouraging because we need more voices out there. The reality is that very few climate podcasters make it to a huge audience, just because it’s a complex issue and can easily turn into a doom-and-gloom topic. Hopefully, we’ll see some more voices come online who can make the issue relevant to people while also inspiring them.
What’s next for you?
As with everyone, I’m looking forward to the end of the pandemic so I can start traveling again. I publish every two weeks and it’s always kind of exciting to see what things pop up out of the blue. I hope to have you on again to update my listeners on the latest climate fiction! Having a new president who cares about climate change will inevitably influence the content of my podcast. I’ll also be doing interviews on Cimpatico and looking forward to how that expands. I encourage your readers to check out the podcast on their favorite podcast app and let me know what they think!
This article is part of the Climate Art Interviews series. It was originally published in Amy Brady’s “Burning Worlds†newsletter. Subscribe to get Amy’s newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.
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Amy Brady is the Deputy Publisher of Guernica magazine and Senior Editor of the Chicago Review of Books. Her writing about art, culture, and climate has appeared in the Village Voice, the Los Angeles Times, Pacific Standard, the New Republic, and other places. She is also the editor of the monthly newsletter “Burning Worlds,†which explores how artists and writers are thinking about climate change. She holds a PHD in English and is the recipient of a CLIR/Mellon Library of Congress Fellowship. Read more of her work at AmyBradyWrites.com at and follow her on Twitter at @ingredient_x.
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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.
We are looking for sustainable, eco-conscious artists for our online exhibition.
We are a brand new, eco-conscious art gallery, committed to harnessing the influential power of art as a tool to create positive change.
We are currently looking for artists to take part in our first-ever online exhibition in support of Plastic Oceans UK, selling and promoting the work of emerging and semi-established artists who use sustainable alternatives in their practice. This can include upcycling, recycling, and experimenting with less-polluting methods to create their artworks, to raise environmental awareness & help encourage a different mindset towards ‘waste’ materials in the art world and beyond.
These artworks will also be promoted through our Instagram page.
We will donate 10% of our profits to Plastic Oceans UK to help put an end to plastic pollution for good.
Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.
In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.
We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.
Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:
Changing their own behaviour; Communicating with their audiences; Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.
Imogen Ross has developed a variety of creative responses to live performance, production and event needs for over 33 years. She collaborates with an array of artists and organisations, teasing out the creative pulse within each project and making it manifest. Imogen is the co-author of ‘Performance Design in Australia’ (2001) and runs the APDGreen Conversations for the Australian Production Design Guild.
How did your interest in Ecoscenography and sustainable theatre production begin?
I think my interest in sustainable theatre production has been there from the very start. As a young designer, I was always concerned about where the set would go at the end of the show. Living in a rural area meant that we all knew exactly what ‘landfill’ meant: the whole set was either going to be driven to the local tip on a Sunday morning OR it was going to be stored in someone’s shed until it could be re-used. The emphasis was always on re-use and upcycling because it felt like we were pouring our hard-earned money into the dirt when we took things to the tip. Working in a small theatre company means that everyone is involved in every step of the way, and every wasteful decision is discussed as the ramifications have impact on future budgets.
Some designers walk away at opening night and never look back. I seldom assume it is someone else’s responsibility to solve the waste problems created by my sets and I always try to present upcycling or recycling pathways for my design choices. I am well known for recycling and upcycling my sets/costumes. Many individuals and theatre companies now contact me to see if I know where to re-home post-show items.
Mr Lizard (Christopher Tomkinson), Snugglepot (Jacob Warner) and Cuddlepie (KirkPage) fight the villain Mrs Snake (Georgia Adamson). Snugglepot and Cuddlepie (CDP, 2015). Director: Susanna Dowling. Set Designer: Imogen Ross. Costume designer: Matthew Aberline. Photo Credit: Branco Gaica.
What does Ecoscenography mean to you? How do you define it (for yourself and others)?
Ecoscenography is about being environmentally consciousness at every step of the design and story-telling process. It is a conscious decision to choose upcycled elements, to re-use existing elements and to recycle them. I like to know the carbon impact of my design decisions, to discuss alternatives and be constantly learning.
Ecoscenography is also about discussing the ‘end of life’ stage of the project with the Director, the Production Manager, the actors and the crew. It is about having regular discussions; including the unlearning of problematic methods, techniques and technologies in performance design. It is about creating story driven, not ego/status- driven decisions.
The set of Kindertransport was made from 300 recycled boxes, all empty and facing the audience, standing 5m high. Boxes were recycled at the end and all furniture was purchased from 2nd hand shops and returned after the show. Most costumes were borrowed or hired. The floor was pieced together from vintage dress patterns on paper. Sarah Greenwood (pictured) as young Eva. Kindertransport (Darlinghurst Theatre 2017). Director: Sandie Eldridge. Set and Costume Design: Imogen Ross. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJODNfBdEQo
Can you tell me about one of your most interesting Ecoscenography projects?
Many of my shows designed for Monkey Baa Theatre have engaged with the serendipity of using repurposed and found items and second hand fabrics. The rigours of year-long touring has taught me the lesson that 2nd hand and true vintage costumes are NOT such a good idea but I will always try to include upcycled elements like 2nd hand buttons and fabrics into the making of hero costumes and their doubles.
In Diary of a Wombat, we collaborated with master puppet maker Briony Anderson who always incorporates upcycled elements into her work. The inner structures of her magnificent wombat are covered in ‘Who Gives a Crap’ toilet paper covers – a marvelous repurposing of something already recycled in its construction. For this show I designed and made an eight metre long ‘Earth Quilt’ made almost entirely of second hand fabrics to represent the cross-section of the landscape as it descends to a wombat burrow. It was stitched over two intense weeks in one long uncut piece with master sewer Matt Aberline in his tiny studio in Enmore. The scraps from the fabrics were used as stuffing so there was little wastage.
Mothball, our inquisitive wombat puppet is introduced to the ‘earth quilt’ in rehearsals. It was vital that the set was soft and without hard edges so that ‘Mothcall’ was not harmed during the show. Diary of a Wombat (Monkey Baa Theatre for Young People, 2017). Director: Sandie Eldridge. Set and Costume Design: Imogen Ross.
For me, upcycling and the use of ‘found’ items is not about stretching the budget (though it certainly was an initial factor when I was younger, working on unfunded Co-op shows) but about allowing the element of chance and happenstance to enter my design process. I enjoy accepting the design challenge of using what is thrown before me. I enjoy looking sideways at people’s rubbish piles, wondering if the missing piece to the puzzle may be there. So many design problems have been solved by the weird and wonderful things I find in my regular travels to and from a theatre space. The layers of complex spatial/colour/texture thinking we designers do as we process a play in our minds may actually bring certain objects to the fore – things we have not noticed lying about before on the periphery.
Second hand objects carry a resonance of their previous experiences. They bring something unique to the visual story-telling, even if no one but the performer or myself know its history. When designing costumes at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2003, someone in Australia asked me how on earth it could be justified spending all that money on hand-making items using 16th century style fabrics when it would be just as easy to use a sewing machine with store-bought fabrics. My answer was that it is the difference between tasting Cadbury’s dairy milk chocolate in a packet and tasting a Belgian handmade chocolate. They are both chocolate right? No. The sensory experience is completely different, though they both look like chocolate. The resonance of the chocolate maker’s hands is in one, the action of a machine in the other.
Can you tell me more about your community-engaged projects?
In 2018 I was asked by Karen Therese the artistic director of Powerhouse Youth Theatre (PYT) to work with them on a community theatre event called Little Baghdad: Cafes and Gardens in Fairfield. It was to be the culmination of two years of working closely with a mostly refugee Iraqi community in the grounds of Fairfield High School, with the assistance of the Parent’s Cafe: a locally run organisation that builds community, provideing education and employment for newly-arrived adults from war-torn countries.
My design brief was to bring together all the different elements that the community had been working on to tell their stories and weave a space for the audience to engage directly with the performers, culminating in a feast, with music, poetry and Arabic folk dancing. I worked with the Iraqi community for 6 weeks, helping to build and design a community garden with them, learning new gardening methods and exploring many new tastes. I found that sitting and listening was as much a part of the design process, as it was driving home while listening to Iraqi music and thinking about how many milkcrates I could safely fit into a 5m x 8m space.
The mobile art gallery in the school gardens had to be dismantled every evening after the event. There were over 40 paintings in total. Little Baghdad: Cafes and Gardens (PYT 2018). Artistic director: Karen Therese. Co-curators Jiva Parthipan, Haitham Jaju and Layla Naji. Event design: Imogen Ross. See https://vimeo.com/262508572
PYT recognises that sharing food and music are just as important as listening to performers tell a story. Musicians led the audience through the gardens as the sun set, introducing spectators to Iraqi language and culture while inviting them to taste the freshly cooked produce. Later, using the raised garden beds as room dividers, we laid out dozens of carpets and cushions made from upcycled hessian bags and Iraqi bedspreads. I covered milk crates with secondhand fabrics and foam and made instant tables from stackable timber stools. We used solar powered lighting for all but the stage area, with candles on every table. The lit trees became our backdrop.
At the end of the 2nd week of nightly performances, we donated as much as we could back to the community. The rugs and cushions were donated to the Parent’s Cafe; the milk crate cushions were donated to a struggling social-enterprise night market in Wollongong that could not afford seating; and the solar powered lighting was shared with a sustainable funeral event company that holds regular community events. PYT does not have much storage space in its tiny offices in Fairfield, so they always plan the waste streams of their sets and costumes carefully in pre-production.
What tips would you give to a scenographer who is exploring sustainable practice for the first time?
Don’t start with the idea that everything must be recyclable. Many things that are not recyclable can still be re-homed, re-used and reimagined by others.
Sustainability is about being creative and having a willingness to discuss alternative solutions with directors and production managers. Don’t be afraid of asking, ‘how do we solve this together’?
Always mention cost saving strategies when talking to the production manager. If something is more expensive to buy initially but will save the production money in the long term, promote this!
Ask for things to be put in writing. It is amazing how a sustainability discussion at the beginning of a process can be easily forgotten or overridden at the end of the process due to stress and time restraints.
Over 3 months of ensemble workshops, Imogen worked with teenage performers to create their vision of an apocalyptic war, heralded by the fabled horsemen of the apocalypse. All materials used were either found, 2nd hand or purchased from Reverse Garbage in Sydney’s inner west. Everything usable was returned post-show to where it had come. Plastic scraps were collected, bagged and recycled responsibly. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Senior Ensemble, State Drama Festival (The Arts Unit, 2017). Director: Nadia Emery. Artist in Residence – Imogen Ross.
What do you think the future of theatre will look like for a climate-resilient world?
I think we will become less ego driven in our designs. I was appalled at a recent panel discussion of graduates from a leading theatre design school when asked about their thoughts on re-use and re-cycling. This new generation of designers was still espousing very outmoded ideas about the need for a designer to assert their style on a production by never using elements from someone else’s design. It was as if the word re-use was a dirty word.
In the future, I think the designers who are clever and creative in their constant re-use and re-imaging of scenic elements between productions will be lauded. This is not about appearing old fashioned and retrospective, as some designers have expressed their fear to me. Instead, new material technologies may make this re-imagining of scenic elements even more exciting, as we can reduce things back to their base elements before re-constructing a new purpose.
Building mask and music rituals using recycled materials with young performers during holiday workshops in Wollongong. Masks made by performers from upcycled milk bottles and costumes made from food box packaging. Creativity Camp, (Merrigong Theatre, 2016 ) Facilitating Theatre Artist: Imogen Ross.
This year I want to work more closely with nature and develop a stronger ecoscenographic voice. I am not sure yet where this decision will take my practice.
Until then, I am working on Life:
Finding joy.
Relationships in all their messy clunky forms.
Solo/group exhibitions with a range of local artists
Teaching the art of ‘seeing, listening and observing’ to young artists
Studying for a masters/phd in the future (soon)
Writing more. Learning more.
Growing things in my guerilla garden and creating spontaneous community sculptures to surprise passersby.
Watch this space…
As artist in residence for Outback Theatre for Young People in 2016, Imogen worked with school students, local artists and businesses to create changing installations across the town using found and upcycled materials. The installations occurred in the evenings so that the new recycling stories could be experienced by the townfolk in the mornings. The multiple installations culminated in the recreation of a sculpture that had won a local school competition to create something meaningfull from rubbish. The winning sculpture was an ‘echidna’ made froma 2litre red tomato sauce bottle and chip packets. The final giant sculpture was built on top of a rented horse float and used beer cans, fencing wire, cardboard boxes and chaff bags to replicate the original. The Giant Echidna (pictured), #While You Were Sleeping, (Outback Theatre for Young People, 2016). Director: Sarah Parsons. Art Workshops and Sculpture Creation: Imogen Ross.
(Top photo: Snugglepot (Jacob Warner) and Cuddlepie (Kirk Page) asleep on the 360 degree rotating tree trunk. Snugglepot and Cuddlepie (CDP, 2015). Director: Susanna Dowling.Set Designer: Imogen Ross. Costume Designer: Matthew Aberline. Photo Credit: Branco Gaica.)
Ecoscenography.com has been instigated by designer Tanja Beer – a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, Australia, investigating the application of ecological design principles to theatre.
Tanja Beer is a researcher and practitioner in ecological design for performance and the creator of The Living Stage – an ecoscenographic work that combines stage design, permaculture and community engagement to create recyclable, biodegradable and edible performance spaces. Tanja has more than 15 years professional experience, including creating over 50 designs for a variety of theatre companies and festivals in Australia (Sydney Opera House, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Queensland Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Arts Centre) and overseas (including projects in Vienna, London, Cardiff and Tokyo).
Since 2011, Tanja has been investigating sustainable practices in the theatre. International projects have included a 2011 Asialink Residency (Australia Council for the Arts) with the Tokyo Institute of Technology and a residency with the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (London) funded by a Norman Macgeorge Scholarship from the University of Melbourne. In 2013, Tanja worked as “activist-in-residence†at Julie’s Bicycle (London), and featured her work at the 2013 World Stage Design Congress (Cardiff)
Tanja has a Masters in Stage Design (KUG, Austria), a Graduate Diploma in Performance Making (VCA, Australia) and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne where she also teaches subjects in Design Research, Scenography and Climate Change. A passionate teacher and facilitator, Tanja has been invited as a guest lecturer and speaker at performing arts schools and events in Australia, Canada, the USA and UK. Her design work has been featured in The Age and The Guardian and can be viewed at www.tanjabeer.com
