We're back! Kind of...
We were asked to be an artist in Do The Green Thing's The Colour of the Climate Crisis exhibition launched in Glasgow during COP26. So we've created a physical piece paired with audio with clips from the podcast. In this episode, we share more about the exhibition and our approach to it.
The exhibition
Art has always helped us to interpret the world and get closer to its truths.
The Colour of the Climate Crisis grapples with one of those truths: that we are facing a crisis of climate and nature, and that the people most affected, most at risk and least responsible for it are people of colour.
We know that racialised and minoritised communities are already on the frontlines of climate change. Their experiences, ideas and leadership must be central to the global response to it.
As world leaders meet at COP26 to discuss the climate crisis, this exhibition offers them an opportunity: to be quiet, and listen. To be humble, and learn. To be brave, and commit to meaningful action.
This is an opportunity for us all to acknowledge the truth that racial injustice is climate injustice, and to begin to change it.
Our approach
Coming from a background in human-centered design and systems thinking, my creative practice focuses on synthesising insights gained from conversations with a range of people and finding the patterns and commonalities of personal experiences. These insights aim to highlight the root causes of our collective oppression, experienced as barriers to empowerment, abundance, and connection.
My piece for this exhibition stems from conversations from the Crystals, Clits, and Climate podcast, which I’ve hosted for the last few years, focusing on the conversations with environmental, intersectionality, and spiritual activists. The people I spoke with, including but not limited to Joycelyn Longdon, Lusugu Kayani, Aalayna Green, Zachi Brewster, Sadie Sinner, and Leila Sadeghee brought up our colonialist history and how we still experience the ramifications of it today. In addition to the explicit racism still happening, we also must face the internalised racism we are so often unaware of. And when we are unaware of it, we cannot address it. Colonialism creates a hierarchy between people, dehumanising them and disconnecting us from our nature and our planet.
Through messaging on a mirror, this piece invites the viewer to reflect on and explore their own internalised definitions of desire and success and how we often unknowingly participate in systems of oppression, including forms of oppression that disconnect us from ourselves, others, and our home planet.