Reader-submitted stories of the COVID-19 pandemic, in no more than 100 words. Read past stories here. Submit your own here.
SOCIAL ISOLATION
It is four of us and a dog in one house with a porch facing west and as much of the world as will fit through two copper wires buried in a hill that is wringing out five days of rain that ripple down the storm drain into the creek that winds toward the whistle and rumble of an upriver train and a single swift against the sunset.
— Michael Terry (Columbia, Missouri)
(Top image: The view.)
* * *
CELLS
A gibbous moon rose, we slept through Wuhan, another SARS thing, it’ll blow over, the south-east Australian autumn, relief from the broiling summer we’ve survived, the pain in our chests, pushing out against our ribs to envelop the billion sentient mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, cremated in fire storms even hell trembled at; now the unemployed queue, one million, two million, hungry like the land is thirsty; I’ve given instructions: no funeral, burn me to ash, let the wind carry me with the cells of the billion to the sea, mountains, desert, let me go home at last.
— Barbara Curzon-Siggers (Clunes, Victoria, Australia)
Blazing silky oak.
* * *
A STEP AHEAD
It is the same every day. Wash your hands. No, you touched the sink handle. Wash your hands again. My brother struggles with OCD, and he also has Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He is in a wheelchair and can’t move his hands, so we serve as his hands. Disinfect the package. Did you disinfect it with the wipes? I didn’t see you do it, you have to do it again. And again. And again. We are on full lockdown. We stay one step ahead of the news. Spray it down with Lysol. We can’t take any chances.
— Gabriella Brandom (Newport Beach, California)
Dusty spending time with our cat, making the most of the small moments.
* * *
ORDINARY THINGS
I wonder how we got here. To the place where ordinary things frighten. A doorknob, the handle on the mailbox, the faucet, our own hands.
When our daughter learned to walk, ordinary things frightened us too. The corner of the coffee table, the brick fireplace, the stairs. It took six months for her to steady and for us to take a breath. Once she swallowed a small piece of plastic. A trip to the ER. A kind, older doctor who blew bubbles to calm our fears. Does that kind doctor have ordinary things: a mask, gloves, time to calm fears?
— Brittany Adams (Huntington Beach, California)
Steps.
* * *
QUARANTANGO
We came to create an artist-residency program in the half-abandoned, mountain village of Fontecchio. Last month: Rome, no lines at the Vatican Museum, the Auditorium Parco della Musica, a dentist appointment. Three weeks ago: a winding drive for blues at a rural restaurant, to kiss both cheeks of everyone is good manners. The week after: a small dinner party where we sip rum, tap shoes, joke about The Decameron. Last week: to see friends or hike trails solo is a violation of the order. This week, restiamo a casa: he teaches me Tango, I remove wallpaper in long strips.
— Allison DeLauer (Fontecchio, L’Aquila, Abruzzo, Italia)
The master bedroom of a vacant house that sits prominently on the piazza with a view of the fountain. It will be transformed.
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This series is edited by Thomas Peterson. One of the editors of Artists & Climate Change, he is also a theatre director and researcher whose work focuses on the climate crisis.
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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.
I was never one to believe in “art for the sake for art.†There are simply too many imbalances, injustices, and ignorance in our world (and in ourselves) – it would be a pity to waste our creativity on nonsense. The divorce from the environment, the abuse of Mother Earth and our single-sided relationship to it… these underly much of our suffering. For, what is war but an attempt to control, monopolize, and deplete natural resources? What is the root cause of many diseases if not the toxins we pump into the Earth and our bodies? And what is gender inequality if not a reflection of our skewed attitude towards all things feminine, beginning with Mother Earth?
In 2019, I was invited to participate in Climate Change Theatre (CCTA), spearheaded by The Arctic Cycle in New York City. CCTA is a biennial, worldwide participatory project that coincides with the United Nations COP meetings. It utilizes theatre to bring people together to shed light on climate change issues and encourage communities and individuals to take environmentally conscious action.
It was my first time participating in CCTA. I was asked to write a 5-minute play about an aspect of the climate crisis. The project resonated with every level of my being, as a writer and theatermaker, an ecofeminist and a human being.
Seeking inspiration for writing, I walked among the trees. I am one of the luckier people who live close to nature – in a forest to be exact. If you listen with all your senses, you can hear the song of all that lives. I dialogued with the elements, and from that, The Butterfly that Persisted was born – an ode to Nature, the ultimate warrior that persisted to exist and abound in spite of everything. And to the human being who persisted to envision and strive for betterment, taking action no matter how small.
I wrote The Butterfly as a poem, a lyrical spoken-word poem, with two primary voices – one in “regular font†and the other in “italics.†One voice represents the elements of nature, beginning as a butterfly and morphing into Water, Wind, Mother Earth, and the Thought itself. The other voice is that of the human being.
I was tremendously pleased to see The Butterfly land in more than 24 cities, to places I’ve never been… from Australia, to India, England, Canada and across the US.
I wish I could have seen all the presentations, but that would have been a financial and environmental catastrophe. The great thing about writing, however, is that your words can travel so you don’t have to! Thus said, as a playwright who also directs and performs, I was terribly curious about the process and staging of the various Butterfly editions. So, I contacted the organizers and directors… and I am so glad I did.
The casting and directing was so diverse, it was quite exciting. I had written the play for one feminine voice, suggesting the possibility of a duet or an ensemble. Not only were all these options realized, but in combinations I would not have thought of – and transcending gender.
Faces of The Butterfly
The Butterfly’s first appearance was in Bridport, England, performed by Sally Lemsford as a one woman play, in a street car. I am quite fond of site-specific performances and the new and unexpected flavors that come along with that. I recall an instant when a cat walked onto the podium while I was performing my play Turaab in Turkey. Another time, dancing with bird wings in the Bay Area, the sun shone at the very end of the performance – as if the sky was “working the lights.â€
At Iowa State University, The Butterfly was staged as an ensemble piece, with the butterfly in the middle (see photo below.) The organizers had contacted me earlier to ask for a family-friendly version of the play, with three instances to consider. It’s not so straightforward to censor one’s own work, but I’m glad I did it. I even ended up keeping one of the changes for my final version of the play. An unexpected result.
Britney Walters in The Butterfly That Persisted at Iowa State University.
Theater Alliance Kansas staged The Butterfly as a solo reading with the actress rotating the music stand while taking on the different voices. At the National Center for Performing Arts in Mumbai, it was presented as a staged reading with two women.
In New York, Hudson River Playback Theater staged The Butterfly with two females, accompanied by sparse improvised music. This was followed by audience members’ personal stories enacted on the spot, echoing the emotions in the play. Powerful!
The Wilbury Theater Group at the University of Rhode Island cast The Butterfly with one female actor playing the elements and several mixed-gender actors playing the human(s). This surprised me at first. My inclination would have been to cast one human and many elements, as I regarded the human as the one going through a transformation and the elements of nature as “the one and the many.†However, if we look at the butterfly as the metamorphosing being in conversation with multiple humans, it makes the experience universal. Again… another way to look at it – another effect.
Culture*Park Theatre in Massachusetts staged the play with a woman and a man, standing with their backs to each other. Now that would have never come to mind! But oh wow, what a beautiful image. I might have thought of including male voices amongst the elements of nature, but as a duet with a man! But why not? Nature has both a feminine and masculine side – and we have both expressed within us.
Another staging that would not have immediately come to mind took place at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia. There, The Butterfly was on stage in a spotlight, and the actor playing the human was seated in the audience, just as a voice. This must have made the audience feel part of the play, part of the problem (and the solutions.) Very nice!
Then there were the Young Womxns Voices in Colorado, whose poster keeps drawing a smile on my face. They represented the humans with three performers standing center stage, and the elements with seven performers appearing around them – as if heard and not seen. A few weeks before the performance, the team had gone on a retreat in the mountains to work while being immersed in nature. “The tone and content of this play unleashed a new maturity amongst the group,†said Sarah Fahmy, who directed the play in Colorado.
This is the ideal scenario, when a written play results in a product (performance) and serves as a process for the actors, and hence the audience. Add to that an environmental initiative… well, it doesn’t get any better!
Climate Strike on the CU Boulder campus. Photo by Beth Osnes.
The Young Womxns Voices took the symbol of the butterfly and made it their own during a Climate Strike on September 20, 2019 on the University of Colorado campus, while 16-year-old Finny Guy declared on the megaphone: “If a dove is the symbol of peace, then a butterfly is the symbol of change.â€
Yes. Young people will lead the way to a greener future. I know that with all my heart.
As a performer, I couldn’t resist doing my own interpretation of the play. I presented it as a one-person audio performance, launching with it my podcast ArabWomanTalking.Â
Finally, I’ve said this before, but I will say it again: Thank you CCTA for a most rewarding experience – professionally and personally. From the theme of “Lighting the Way,†to the process of writing, and the insight that it brought, to seeing The Butterfly spread her wings, to connecting with wonderful people around the world who share a love for the environment and the performing arts – it all leaves me feeling expansive and optimistic. I guess that’s what happens when you talk about something that really matters to you. Always good to remember. When it comes from the heart, it’s usually right on.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Raúl Hernández and Homero Gómez, two activists campaigning for the conservation of monarch butterflies and the woods in which they hibernate in Mexico. Both men were found dead at the beginning of 2020 as a result of their activism. May they rest in peace, and may our world be freed from the greed that is killing Nature and the heroes who strive to honor and protect it.
(Top image: Young Womxn Voices at the University of Colorado. Photo by Beth Osnes.)
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Lana I. Nasser is a Jordanian-American writer, performing artist, facilitator, and researcher based in the Netherlands, telling stories on the page and on the stage. Working across genres, wearing various hats. Informed by academic background in psychology, consciousness studies and dreams. Inspired by language, nature and mythology. Working internationally; an award here – a grant there; publications in Arabic and English, and most recently in Dutch. Founder of Aat Theater and Maskan for artists in a forest. An ecofeminist, beginning permaculturist and beekeeper.
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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.
Reader-submitted stories of the COVID-19 pandemic, in no more than 100 words. Read past stories here. Submit your own here.
PANDEMIC REVISITED
I spoke with my 95-year-old aunt yesterday. Her mind is on her parents, Americans who met in Paris after losing their spouses to the 1918 flu epidemic. They had their first baby out of wedlock, more common than scandalous in a time when a quarter of the world’s population was infected by the flu. That baby was my mother. As a widow in her eighties, my grandmother penned poems of longing about her true love, whom she hospiced in a deserted hotel in Kissimmee, Florida: the young husband who died in her arms.
— Bethia Sheean-Wallace (Fullerton, California)
(Top image: My grandparents home, The Jungle Prada, in St. Petersburg, Florida.)
* * *
I HELD HER
The morning they announced the pandemic, my grandmother died. She died in one day.
My grandmother’s body shook on that afternoon. I held her. It would be the last time I would hold her. In the afternoon, I was visiting her and doing my homework and there was no quarantine. Eight hours later I was sitting inside the car and my mom sent me a text. She couldn’t make the phone call.
All of that seems far away because my dad bought twenty rolls of toilet paper and now I’m making my way through twenty bottles of beer.
— Cameron Diiorio (Costa Mesa, California)
Cameron with her grandmother, taken in 2018.
* * *
THE OFFLINE PROFESSOR
I wake at 3 AM, as if prompted by an alarm, but I have nowhere to go. My school is closed; I am suddenly supposed to teach online. Fuck online. I miss my students, my colleagues, work. Do the students have reliable wifi? Do they even have computers at home? Are they working because they need to pay rent? So many of them work in food service. What is this tickle in my throat? Was that a dry cough? I get up and find the thermometer. No fever. No fever, but no more sleep tonight either.
— Melissa Knoll (Corona, California)
Missing home from home.
* * *
SEARCHING FOR COURAGE
I’m thankful my mother isn’t dealing with all this. I’m thankful she doesn’t have to live in fear of another disease infecting her compromised body, though I do wish I could hear her voice.
She would respond to the current state of the world with words of courage and comfort. Neither dismissing my fears nor playing into them. She would repeat the words she always spoke to her students:
“Face the future with warm courage and high hopes.â€
My days at home begin by looking out the window and searching for her courage.
— Lisa Kitchens (Brooklyn, New York)
A view from my kitchen window, where I spend most mornings.
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This series is edited by Thomas Peterson. One of the editors of Artists & Climate Change, he is also a theatre director and researcher whose work focuses on the climate crisis.
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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.
Reader-submitted stories of the COVID-19 pandemic, in no more than 100 words. Read past stories here. Submit your own here.
IN THE DISTANCE, LIVE OAKS
“Any kids or dogs?†the ranger asked. “No.†“Playground’s closed. I can’t touch money.â€
Driving toward the trailhead: mother, father, son; near a picnic spot, not eating, not playing, just standing bewildered by sun and silence.
The same sun beats brutal on the steep, dry trail. I snap photos of empty ridges, brief green in the wake of rain, soon to be desiccated, dangerous, latent flames.
This desert climb offers poor comfort for a transplanted daughter of streams and trees. But on the path down, grasses aglow with wildflowers, poppies flashing hope, and in the distance, live oaks still stand.
— Virginia Shank (Orange County, California)
(Top Photo: Badger Pass trail in Casper Wilderness Park.)
* * *
SEEDS
Last week, my students asked a hundred questions to which I gave only tentative answers: Am I going to get sick? (Maybe.) Am I going to die? (No. I couldn’t bear it.) What about sports? What about prom? What about graduation? Am I going to graduate? (YES.) Am I going to college in the fall? (I feel much less certain about the answer I gave a week ago. Did I mislead them? I cannot imagine being seventeen, eighteen, right now.) Is this the Rapture? (This—leaving me the most shaken.) The peas we planted in September refuse to stop growing.
— Alyssa Hull (Wilmington, Delaware)
Studying the history of the climate—a tree that kept growing despite its scars.
* * *
QUILLS
Today I couldn’t breathe. Not because I am infected with the virus, but because worry, anxiety, and uncertainty have settled in my chest and hold tight. So, I took a walk in a snow-covered forest, grateful to live in Alaska with easy access to trails safe for social distancing. There I spied a porcupine high in a spruce tree. I thought, “I didn’t know porcupines could climb.†Then, “oh, to be like a porcupine, able to climb out of the chaos and carry my armor with me, so trouble does not wish to come near me.â€
— Brooke Wood (Anchorage, Alaska)
The porcupine, sheltering in place.
* * *
OUT IN THE WOODS
Went to the woods yesterday. Being amongst the trees and seeing the beginnings of spring green pop up on the forest floor made me cry with gratitude and relief. I’ve been so worried about the natural world for so long and for a moment I could just relax and let it take care of me. And I wasn’t the only one. So many others, of all ages and backgrounds, were out there, at a six foot distance. Walking in the woods, sitting by the creek, taking the time to let nature heal them and give them comfort too.
— Rebecca Schultz (Melrose Park, Pennsylvania)
New life in the woods.
______________________________
This series is edited by Thomas Peterson. One of the editors of Artists & Climate Change, he is also a theatre director and researcher whose work focuses on the climate crisis.
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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.
Reader-submitted stories of the COVID-19 pandemic, in no more than 100 words. Read past stories here. Submit your own here.
GHOST TOWN WAKING
My parents tell me they smuggled me in.
Like it’s a joke.
Like thousands haven’t died.
But there’s no border patrol waiting for us. No inspection team. No need to hide in the trunk.
Fleeing from ghost town to ghost town.
It wasn’t until my walk last night after the storm, listening to Mitski – deep bass and foggy sorrow-voice – that I remembered the point of being alive. Heard frogs sing from the creek. Watched a girl dance under a streetlamp, not a care in the world. Saw a shooting star.
So shocked I forgot to make a wish.
— Jivani Rodriguez (Fairfield, Iowa)
(Top Photo: Ghost town.)
* * *
THE LEEK OF THE APOCALYPSE
Same store as before. The gloves don’t use cash best not smile Plastic shield. Where, now what – Her fridge is so full (a first – who’s it for?) Walks on with false purpose. The Frozens. New Land. Butternut squash Paper Bag Cubed! Waits. Hears the “do it.†Grabs the bag on the bottom Now GO. But can’t seem to leave yet. … “Come closer†it calls. … (Really?) (Haven’t tried you for a while.) (Gassy, that’s true.) I’ll do it. It eases inside (a smile of sorts?) Pays through plastic with plastic and she and her leek walk it home.
— Kristina Watt (Ottawa, Ontario)
My leek.
* * *
PARTIES AMID PANDEMONIUM
My cap and gown sit in vacuum-sealed plastic bags, purchased two weeks before quarantine. Funny, the day I muster the courage to break my shut-in streak, we’re told to stay indoors. Playing Sims 4 until 2 AM and listlessly thumbing through library books isn’t new to me. The only difference is that my anxiety has infected this house. The street. The city. Tourists are immune to it, popping bottles and drowning in their youth on Clearwater Beach, while crematoriums across the pond fire up. If my grandmother were alive, I’d pray for her.
— Stephanie Stott (Largo, Florida)
The cap, unused.
* * *
THE WIND
Nova Scotia winds wildly shake the new house where I’m self-isolating. I wonder when or if my husband can get here from 4,000 kilometers away. Six days seeing no one. Alone here in the unfamiliar. The wind, the dead roses, the blue jays, the crows, the seagulls, and the old gardens in the vast yard call me out. Old stone birdbath statues watch me as I walk by. It is not the old world. The landscape is new, the fears and tears eclipsed by good deeds. We can do this if we live, I think.
— Mary Woodbury (Beaver Bank, Nova Scotia)
The gardens.
______________________________
This series is edited by Thomas Peterson. One of the editors of Artists & Climate Change, he is also a theatre director and researcher whose work focuses on the climate crisis.
———-
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.
Self-isolating at home, I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts and radio documentaries. What a wonderful medium! They inspire – no, they deserve – active, contemplative listening. Not the multi-tasking variety of listening during which we also wash the dishes, go for a run, or walk the dog.
If we are wise, we will recognize that the coronavirus pandemic, like every dark cloud, has a silver lining: an opportunity to slow down, observe, be curious. An opportunity to create space to listen: to ourselves, to the wind rattling the window, to the snow geese returning north to their breeding grounds in the Arctic tundra.
“We [artists] understand rhythm, flow and negative space,†writes Andrew Simonet, founder and director of Artists U. “Not everything we do right now needs to be doing. Silence is a way of telling. Stillness is movement.â€
And this, from Jerry Saltz, Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic for New York Magazine: “Now is the time of the slower-artist and makers, working alone or [in] more intimate conditions. You will reach the further shores.â€
According to the music critic Tim Page, interviewed by Fishko, “I think in a lot of ways, it was just the beginning of a century… of absolute chaos and nightmare, and as so often, the artists heard it and reflected it first.†(Emphasis added.) Fishko ends her hour-long special by reminding us that, 100 years later, history is repeating itself: “We are about to experience the next great cultural explosion, when artists help us sort it out, with sometimes shocking results.â€
If the first two decades of the 21st century are any indication, all of our anthropocenic ducks are perfectly aligned for Fishko’s prediction to come true. Artists have more than enough “chaos and nightmares†to chose from: climate crisis, coronavirus pandemic, children in cages, sixth mass extinction, and the biblical swarm of locusts currently devastating East Africa and South Asia. Bill McKibben’s 2005 wish for some goddamn climate operas is finally coming true, along with climate theatre, climate music and climate poetry. We have a growing chorus of powerful women’s voices shifting the climate narrative, an impressive list to which I would add Mary Annaïse Heglar, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Emily Johnston. We have Julie’s Bicycle, Olafur Eliasson and Isaac Cordal. We even have a Climate Museum.
But we’re not “there†yet.
I would argue that we’re not even close to the ground-shifting-beneath-our-feet protest music movement of the 60s and 70s that energized an entire generation to question authority. Perhaps this crowned virus will change the status quo? Possibly. A recent article in Big Think reminds us that “protest music is a natural feature of humanity†– just think back to those medieval court jesters and minstrels, whose poetry and music were cleverly disguised as barbs to force their privileged overlords to look themselves in the mirror.
So I throw this question out to the universe: Who will write the next The Times They Are A-Changin’? Who will write the next Big Yellow Taxi? NPR compiled a list here, but I still feel that the urgency of the current situation – the overwhelming angst, eco-anxiety, grief, fear – has not yet been embraced by enough artists to change the mood music.
It is worth noting that in the very short time (just three months!) that coronavirus has become a household name, artists’ responses to the pandemic have been immediate, bold, and truly global. If only the same could be said for the climate crisis. Simonet’s important call to arms to artists (see excerpt below) in the context of the corona crisis, could easily have been written for the climate crisis, years ago:
This moment is a health crisis, a brutal one. It is also a crisis of meaning. It is a crisis of connection, of story. It is a crisis of who we are to each other and the agreements that hold us together. And those are things we artists know how to work on. The script for how we will be together in this time has not been written. Artists will have a huge impact on that story.
I am reminded of a similar quote by Amy Brady, Editor-In-Chief of the Chicago Review of Books, in her 2019 paean for climate fiction: “The drama, then, lies in the emotional arcs of the characters as they face their lives with alternating hope and despair, knowing that while the future looks bleak, it has yet to be written.â€
This then, is Corona’s gift: a recognition that collectively, with the right combination of political, social and individual commitment, we can flatten the curve, shift the needle, rewrite the script. The future is ours to imagine, to design, to build. According to Simonet, artists are the first responders: “You don’t need to save the world. You need only carry your gifts and skills into this present challenge.â€
Lest we forget, laughter in the time of corona is an essential ingredient moving forward. Here is a selection of some my favorite coronavirus memes currently circulating on Twitter.Â
This is bloody fabulous: a world-wide social distancing festival where artists of all kinds and from nooks and crannies around the globe can upload their online performances, happenings, events etc.
(All photos by Joan Sullivan, from her new body of work, Grief, 2020)
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Joan Sullivan is a Canadian photographer focused on the energy transition. Her renewable energy photographs have been exhibited in group and solo shows in Canada, the UK and Italy. She is currently working on a long-term, self-assigned photo project about Canada’s energy transition. In her monthly column for Artists and Climate Change, Joan explores the intersection of art and the energy transition. You can find Joan on Twitter, Visura andEllo.
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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.
Reader-submitted stories of the COVID-19 pandemic, in no more than 100 words. Read past stories here. Submit your own here.
CERTAINTY
Working at a long table. A Fabio Mauri work to my right called Director. Am I still a director when theater has been cancelled? Ahead are piles of books. For work, for comfort, for poetry. I look up from the screen and take in the view. Trees and hill and sky. All healing, I hope. Underfoot, Sofia, the newfie, peacefully snoozing. To my left, Tenley. Bravely and generously forging through. She astounds me. Boundlessly. We have adventured, laughed, and cried together. Now, we are bewildered and scared. Together. Certain only of our love. That is enough. That is the poetry.
— Chari Arespacochaga (Beacon, New York)
(Top image: The view and book spine poetry.)
* * *
PUMPERNICKEL
Pushing carts, we milled around the empty shelves of meat, eggs, bread, when I spotted in a dark display, a loaf of pumpernickel—round, brown as peasant rye, the devil’s farts, my mother used to say. Sandwiches for my daughter’s lunch, a slather of mustard—I set the loaf into my cart and pushed on. Coming towards me, a couple, white, sixties, better than this neighborhood market. The woman said, “Look, no bread.†He grumbled. I pointed to my loaf: “pumpernickel.†A day’s loot. His face twisted with petulance, “What if I don’t like pumpernickel?†And I missed my mother most of all.
— Linda Thomas (Irvine, California)
The loaf, brown as peasant rye.
* * *
IN THIS TOGETHER
A siren. Sometimes steps in the apartment above me. The sound of water running through pipes because someone flushed a toilet. These are the sounds I hear in the wee hours of the morning when I lie in bed, unable to sleep. I think about how fragile our systems are. How in a matter of weeks, something invisible to the naked eye has essentially shut down the entire world. It’s humbling. But also awe-inspiring. I’ve been more intensely connected to the people around me than ever before, perhaps. We’re in this together. We will get through it together.
— Chantal Bilodeau (New York, New York)
The view from my bedroom window.
* * *
WE WILL KNOW SOMEONE
Yesterday, I phoned my aunt, 68 years old, risk group, to see how she was holding up. She told me that she and her husband, 71, risk group, no longer leave their house. If she remembered anything similar: curfews, hysteric preppers in supermarkets, mass social anxiety; she told me no. Chernobyl: she told me about mushrooms and field plants. Why: she told me that she was twelve when they installed the village’s first landline phone. Then she asked me if I remembered him: who? the deceased, the second: no. The shiver in her voice told me that she did.
— Lisa Schantl (Graz, Austria)
Oberlimbach, 2006.
______________________________
This series is edited by Thomas Peterson. One of the editors of Artists & Climate Change, he is also a theatre director and researcher whose work focuses on the climate crisis.
———-
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.
Reader-submitted stories of the COVID-19 pandemic, in no more than 100 words. Read past stories here. Submit your own here.
RESET
Rolling change. Cancellations. New challenges. Zooming in. Listening to news. Fearing the worst. Washing hands raw. Stocking up. Bracing. Watching the world stop. Stopping. Breathing. Spreading out into newfound time. Seeing hope. Clear water in the canals in Venice. Fish and birds return. Pollution disappearing. The universe provides a reset button. Pressing it. Now.
— Mindi Dickstein (Bloomingdale, New Jersey)
(Top photo: The universe provides a reset button.)
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POTATOES AND EGGS
By the second grocery store, he’s becoming mildly panicked. “It’s not about running out of supplies,†he’d told his wife. “I just want to see.†“Check for potatoes and eggs,†she says. He thinks of the son and daughter-in-law working at the hospital. “Stay in medicine,†he’d advised, “it’s a good financial move.†Money. The President’s solution is a tax break. “We don’t need money. We need PPEs,†his son says. Over the phone. Now, it’s only phone and text contact. It strikes him he’s old, suddenly – by the stroke of a mouse on a spreadsheet, 67 and “At Risk.â€
— Peter Gerrard (Irvine, California)
Do you want the last egg?
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BIGTOOTH ASPEN
I go to the forest in times of distress. Bigtooth Aspen eyes look out at me in the morning light. I stand in the stillness, almost hearing the summer sounds of the quivering leaves. A moment of interconnection with one tree, a sentinel in the empty understory where more and more individuals are falling. I feel their pain. On this day, I realize the consequences for ourselves and the natural world.
— Susan Hoenig (Princeton, New Jersey)
“Bigtooth Aspen: I am the Earth and the Earth is me,†black walnut ink and acrylic paint, 2020.
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THE KEYS IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS
Despite the declared national emergency, nothing changes in the Florida Keys. We arrive at the Seafood Festival early to avoid the crowd. We sit in the back. The conch ceviche is delicious. The band plays Tom Petty songs as the locals greet each other. “I don’t care. I’m still going to give you a hug.†In the bathroom a woman sighs impatiently as I wash my hands. When I explain I’m singing “Happy Birthday†in my head she says, “Oh that.†We stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, the Lord’s Prayer and the Star-Spangled Banner. Perhaps this will protect us.
— Mary Camarillo (Huntington Beach, California)
Sunday at the Seafood Festival.
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This series is edited by Thomas Peterson. One of the editors of Artists & Climate Change, he is also a theatre director and researcher whose work focuses on the climate crisis.
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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.
Reader-submitted stories of the COVID-19 pandemic, in no more than 100 words. Read past stories here.Submit your own here.
SCREENS, A WINDOW
Kitchen table. Eyes are stinging. Staring at a screen. Scrolling. Set up an online meeting. No one came. My job just melted away. A plate of half eaten carrots. On the fridge is the new school schedule. My kids are on their hour of free time. My son came home with a basket of everything from school, dumped it here and crawled into bed. My husband is working in the next room. Two screens. His head is in his hands. Out the window, my neighbor is in the sunshine, looking over her balcony. I have never seen her before.
Planting the beans made her feel like a woman in a fairy tale, the German kind, both magical and brutal. She and her son had bought the seeds years ago. They planted one, waited. Then he had taken the plant to school along with a chart marking its growth. She saved the rest. Now he was a senior and she was another kind of senior, which made her vulnerable during this plague. She planted the old beans in cans filled with dirt. She patted each down with a prayer. The day’s rain watered them. What did she have to lose?
— Lisa D. Alvarez (Silverado, California)
Waiting.
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TOO MANY SHOWERS
How do you explain a pandemic to someone who is developmentally delayed and a little obsessive? He wonders why we can’t go out and why people have stopped visiting. We tell him it’s flu season, and lots of people are just sick and don’t want to get him sick. How long will that ruse last? If we explain in detail, he may start obsessing over the germ issue and possibly never leave the house again. Or obsessing over himself, and going back to six showers a day (after finally getting him down to two). It’s curious. Interesting times, indeed.
— Kera McHugh (Cumberland, British Columbia)
Here’s our brother, MB.
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LADY LOVES
I used to go to work. That made my dog sad. Now I don’t go to work. This makes my dog happy. It makes me happy, too. My dog and I are together all day long. We do not practice social distancing. We cuddle together on the couch. She sits by my feet while I eat. And we take walks. Oh, our walks. Through the woods, by the sea, around a lake, up a mountain. Time with my dog is the one good thing. Be safe.
— Andrea Lepcio (Bar Harbor, Maine)
Lady atop Dorr Mountain in Acadia National Park. She is available to lead tours.
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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.
This month, I have for you an interview with Laurie Goldman, the Director of Public Engagement at The ClimateMusic Project, an organization that brings together scientists, composers, musicians, and other creatives to compose and perform music inspired by the science of climate change. They were recently featured in the New York Times and have lots of big plans for the future.
I’ve interviewed dozens of artists since this newsletter began, but never someone who creates climate music. What can music communicate about climate change that perhaps other means of communication can’t? Or put another way, what do you hope audiences take away from The ClimateMusic Project’s compositions and performances?
Music has a way of reaching people on a more emotional level. The ClimateMusic Project aims to leverage the power of music to capture hearts and minds in a way that a scientific article or lecture about climate change cannot. We hope, and have found, that audiences gain new insights from our work and ultimately are motivated to action. Our ultimate goal is actually not to create music, but to inspire action. Along the way, we are proud that we create engaging and compelling performances.
How did The ClimateMusic Project come about?
Our founder, Stephan Crawford, was seeking to figure out a way to communicate science in a more engaging manner. He was concerned that while people knew about the issue of climate change, they did not necessarily appreciate the necessity for urgent action or the fact that they could be part of the solution. Stephan has a musical background and understood the ability of music to affect people so he worked on a concept to use the medium of music to convey science. From there he invited a composer and band as well as a few scientists to a daylong “hack†that ultimately resulted in a composition that incorporated compelling music guided by science.
What genres of music does your group create and perform?
We have three current compositions in very different genres. The first composition, Climate, by composer Erik Ian Walker, is an electronic/symphonic piece that portrays the atmospheric impacts of climate change. Icarus In Flight, composed by Richard Festinger, is a chamber music composition that highlights the human drivers of climate change – fossil fuel use, population growth, and land use change. The most recent piece is a jazz and spoken-word piece by COPUS called What If We…? that portrays sea-level rise and its effect on populations and land. What If We…? features a compelling chorus sung by children: “what if we change?†It’s powerful. As you can see, our compositions are quite diverse – people like to listen to genres they appreciate, and we aim to reach as many people as possible using whatever style resonates.
Our goal is to use music to speak to people in the communities where they live. If that involves hip hop, electronic, country, samba, reggae, or whatever, we want to work with composers in those genres. We are looking to build our portfolio by working with environmentally engaged composers around the world to reach local audiences. In fact, we are developing a methodology so that it will be easier for composers to work with us and our extended team of scientists. However, it is important for the compositions to be guided by the science of climate change.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by “guided by science?â€
We have a team of scientists who collaborate to ensure fidelity to the data and the scientific narrative we seek to communicate. Composers have creative freedom within a framework set by our science team. It can be as simple as aligning tempo and pitch to the data and narrative we provide (though that isn’t exactly “simpleâ€) or the collaboration can be more creatively complex. Our piece on sea-level rise featured embedded data sonifications, realistic headlines from 2045, as well as a duel between drums and bass with drums representing the ocean. We work closely with our science advisers to ensure fidelity to the science: the process is very much a collaboration where musicians bring creativity and work with the team to make sure the science is accurately portrayed.
Who are some of your collaborators?
We work with a team of scientists from the University of California, Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology, and the list is expanding. Our chief science adviser is a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments of climate change (for which the IPCC has been awarded a Nobel prize). In addition, we have an extended team of more than thirty people focused on visual elements, public outreach, partnership, etc. And we have a stellar Leadership Council from sectors such as business, arts, and public policy that advises us on strategy to build upon our work.
One of our top priorities is motivating action, so we have developed a network of organizations dedicated to making a difference on the issue. Our partners include Cool Effect, the San Francisco Department of the Environment, Interfaith Power & Light, the Global Footprint Network, and Re-volv. They help people learn about the issue, form community around the issue, or engage on projects to mitigate or adapt. We are working to add other partners to our network so we can give people options for action. The last thing we would want to do is get people concerned about climate change but not show them a path for action! We ask audiences to get engaged if they are not already, to do more if they are already taking some action, and to bring their friends if they are already leading in terms of their own activity.
The ClimateMusic Project’s performances often include visual elements. What does this add to the performances?
We include visuals to enhance understanding of the narrative. Climate change is complex and some people are visual learners while others are more auditory learners. Visuals can highlight the data elements, or provide historical and future references. Plus they can add beauty or highlight concern.
We also generally have an opportunity for audience engagement after each performance. That takes different forms but usually includes a chance to interact with our science team, our composers, our action partners and our core team. It helps to build further understanding and also to hash out any anxiety that arises about the future. So far, our compositions have featured two scenarios for the future, one that shows the trajectory if we fail to take sufficient action and a more hopeful scenario the demonstrates what we can achieve if we implement the solutions that are already available. We know that we can work together to make our world a better place for all and we strive to communicate that fact.
What’s next for The ClimateMusic Project?
We have had quite a few requests for engagement, especially since a profile of our work was highlighted by the New York Times last November. The 50th anniversary of Earth Day is coming up and we are scheduled to perform in a few places (details to come on our website). We are also working to build our action partner network to get folks more engaged. And, we will have an online methodology so we may work with musicians around the world who want to compose new pieces that will reach broad audiences. We will be reaching out to select composers in the coming year.
We are also about to launch an exciting new project with Los Angeles-based composer and Grammy winner Heitor Pereira that will be geared toward kids and focused on biodiversity and climate change. That project will likely include some new animated elements and a longer campaign that will really engage kids! In fact, we plan to work on a strategy to bring our work to schools and take advantage of their curiosity and interest in action. Stay tuned.
And, of course, we are always looking for support for our work. We are a nonprofit organization trying to make a difference!
(Top image: The ClimateMusic Project at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco. Photo by Sven Eberlein.)
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.
