By Kirsty Lumm and Heather McKnight
Our Creative Climate Cafe event last weekend, on 7 Jan 2023, was an inspirational space where we connected with a diverse group of people interested in climate issues from different perspectives, experiences and generations. People came together for a few hours to reflect, share and create together. We were particularly inspired by our youngest attendee, who aged seven, was furiously making save the planet posters before we even got a chance to get started!
Climate Cafes, as defined by the Climate Psychology Alliance, are open, inclusive spaces for people to talk and act on climate change. Everyone is welcome to join the conversation and get involved. When running this climate cafe, Magnetic Ideals and Arts for Life wanted to build on this idea by running a climate cafe with a difference; the option of engaging with art and creative practices.
We believe that art helps people connect so they can come together and creatively engage with ways to take action, create community, and process eco-anxiety and dread about the future of our planet. Art can help process difficult feelings because it activates the imagination allowing us to sit with our feelings, acknowledge our feelings, and then transform our feelings. It also allows us to look at different possibilities for the future to reimagine what we want the future to look like. Any art can help with feelings of eco-anxiety: think about all of the amazing art that has been present throughout different protests in the last couple of years and how those visuals on social media allow people to connect and ingest the information differently.
Our session began with tea, coffee and check-ins. People had a chance to share why they wanted to attend the event. People expressed eco-anxiety in different ways, from activist burn-out to concerns for the future, and frustrations with local and national politics and corporations. We also heard about people’s interest in nature and community projects and a desire to connect with others on these issues.
Then we began looking at some positive news stories from the last year; it is so easy to focus on what is wrong that we felt a bit of inspiration would be helpful. Each group worked on a mind map of their thoughts and feelings. We discussed a broad range of hopeful issues such as organic farming, spaces for bees in the city, circular economics and political campaigning. There were also some really productive talks on what we can do individually, starting from where we are, slowing down and changing little things in our lives.
Following our mind mapping, people worked with old books and magazines to create collages, some as a group, others as individuals and other artworks. This allowed people to focus, chat, and visually explore ideas and feelings. Themes about potential futures, food chains, anger, action and appreciating the beauty of nature were abundant. We will let these pictures speak for themselves!
Our next Creative Climate Cafe will be a drop-in session on 18 March 2023 as part of the College of Self-Managed Learning’s Festival of Learning. We hope to run more of these cafes as the year progresses. You can sign up for our mailing list here to be kept updated with issues and view our other events as part of the Reconnect! Programme here.
Finally, we want to thank Andrea, who also wrote a narrative to her artwork and has allowed us to share it below…
This art is Mother Nature, with all her colours, with all her kindness.
Being one with Nature by Andrea Lopez Alba
One of the issues has been to take Nature as property and not as one of us. This has allowed some people to use her as a resource to enrich themselves (understanding wealth as an individual economic benefit). Instead, other people have created communities with another way of living. It is to perceive Nature as a mother and provider of food for her children, therefore as someone to be respected and cared for.
I will refer specifically to indigenous communities: native people with a deep connection to Nature, with the consciousness to analyze her and learn from her cycle and her movement. From those communities, we have much to learn. Unfortunately, the indigenous communities that exist are threatened day by day by problems of power and territoriality, by an economic system that results in forcibly displacing them, losing in the process, the land they care for, and, progressively their culture and way of life.
My invitation is to continue in contact with Nature. To feel her. To allow ourselves to appreciate sunrises and sunsets, to walk on her land and while doing so, I want you to think and understand how she works and how our daily actions influence her. If the impact is negative, in our consciousness, we will start to reduce it, and if the impact is positive in our consciousness, there will also be the desire to replicate it.
With many thanks to our funders at the National Lottery Community Fund.
