Cornwall

Talking about climate change

Jason's story

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Wallace Heim writes: 

One of the explanations offered for why climate change is not more prominent in people’s thinking is that it’s not physically seen. It doesn’t feel ‘real’ enough.

But a different view comes out in the stories people tell about how climate change is immediately altering their everyday lives. The climate is changing how they feel about the world and their decisions about what to do.

Project ASPECT, based at University College Falmouth, is gathering people’s stories about climate change from individuals and communities in Wales, northern England, London and Cornwall. Building a digital narrative archive, they are capturing on DVD how people talk about the climate in the context of their everyday lives.

There are those who watch. Heather continues the diary her mother started, recording every day what work is done on the family farm and the weather. Duncan and Matt are surfers in Cornwall, watching the storms. There are those who work with renewable energy, or, like Hanna, find green jobs for young people. Many are changing the way they grow food and eat: Mary from Incredible Edible; Owen with his backyard in Peckham; and masked night-time Ninja guerrilla gardeners. Singers, rappers, athletes tell their stories. Spontaneous acts of community kindness sit alongside the meticulous work of digitising the weather reports from World War I ship’s logs.

In these stories of everyday life, there is a cultural reality emerging, soft-voiced, but pressing.

“ashdenizen blog and twitter are consistently among the best sources for information and reflection on developments in the field of arts and climate change in the UK” (2020 Network)

ashdenizen is edited by Robert Butler, and is the blog associated with the Ashden Directory, a website focusing on environment and performance.
The Ashden Directory is edited by Robert Butler and Wallace Heim, with associate editor Kellie Gutman. The Directory includes features, interviews, news, a timeline and a database of ecologically – themed productions since 1893 in the United Kingdom. Our own projects include ‘New Metaphors for Sustainability’, ‘Flowers Onstage’ and ‘Six ways to look at climate change and theatre’.

The Directory has been live since 2000.

Go to The Ashden Directory

PLYMOUTH ARTS CENTRE | Call for Artists

CALL FOR ARTISTS
Performance Market | 21-24 January 2010

Deadline for applications 5pm, Monday 23 November 2009

Call for artists from all disciplines interested in developing performance elements in their work

Artists (including students) from Devon and Cornwall are invited to make a proposal for Performance Market. Internationally acclaimed performance artist Marina Abramović will select seven artists to develop a site-specific durational performance work around Plymouth City Market. The aim of Performance Market is to support emerging performance practices and selected artists who will have the opportunity to take part in workshops and surgeries to develop their idea. 

Presented by Plymouth Arts Centre and the Marina Abramović Institute for Preservation of Performance Art in collaboration with the Live Art Development Agency. Performance Market is part of the symposium and exhibition The Pigs of Today are the Hams of Tomorrow, presenting new live durational performance works at The Slaughterhouse, Royal William Yard in Plymouth.

Deadline for applications by email: 5pm Monday 23 November 2009.
If you are unsure if your work is eligible please feel free to contact us. 
Find out more about how to apply or contact Caroline Mawdsley, Education and Outreach Curator


Performance Market is devised by Helen Pritchard and Caroline Mawdsley.


Go to RSA Arts & Ecology