The launch of the Creative Climate Café Programme brought together artists, musicians, environmentalists, and community activists to celebrate funding for a new kind of climate café. This new programme, funded by the Rampion Community Benefit Fund, brings creative art practices into the traditional creative climate café format. This programme of ten cafes covers issues from the energy crisis, marine life and wetlands preservation.
A partnership project between Magnetic Ideals, Arts for Life and Ecotopia Now!, the Creative Climate Cafe initiative will help address eco-anxiety, and fuel conservation for vulnerable groups by running ten intergenerational, family-friendly Creative Climate Cafes that also address the cost-of-living crisis. These workshops will be hosted by experienced facilitators and community leaders with backgrounds in sustainability, mental health, eco-anxiety and community empowerment. Arts activities range from painting with natural dyes, to marbling and working with charcoals, the full programme of events is available on Eventbrite.
Kirsty Lumm from Arts for Life discussed how creative climate cafes, people will engage in healing artistic pursuits, and build community while learning to save money sustainably in the cost-of-living crisis. Each cafe addresses a different cost of living issue, from home fuel use, water use, food, social life and connections, sustainable purchasing, and empowering people to ask for change. Heather McKnight from Magnetic Ideas explained how at these builds on the Climate Psychology Association model of Climate Cafes as open, inclusive spaces for discussing climate change. Cafes allow a forum that can encourage action and educate in cost saving. Research indicates that these collective experiences can lead to better mental health outcomes and be better for the planet, as people move from anxiety to action. Booking for the creative climate cafes is available here.
Xenia Christopoulou from Ecotopia Now! gave an empowering talk about how small actions can make a big difference, and about how interconnected we are with the world around us. Katie Scanlan, the Rampion Stakeholder and Visitor Centre Manager, also gave at talk highlighting the way in which the Rampion Windfarm have been engaging with community both through the visitor centre, and through the Rampion Community Benefit Fund.
The launch event featured a soundscape by local musician Jim Purbrick under the guise of Remember Glaciers. The project Snæfellsjökull 2011 recalls memories of a road trip to an electronic music festival near the Snæfellsjökull glacier in Iceland. The story is told in fragments of dialogue from a more care free time when our only concerns were “Where’s the raves at in Iceland?”, how to make Salmiakki and whether the car would be able to get us there and back again.” You can hear edits of this stream from this live project on his YouTube.
A highlight of the night was a performance of protest song Under the Pee by Lorelei Mathias and Phil Johnstone comedically highlighting pollution in the sea. Lorelei is a comedian, author, mermaid… and founder of cause-powered comedy collective, www.Meloncomedy.com. Lorelei Mathias believes comedy has a unique power to create change, and has made work for South Coast Sirens (which she co-founded), and performed at Surfers Against Sewage /SOS Whitstable’s ‘Cut the Crap’ marches, as well as comedy shows from London to Melbourne. Phil Johnstone is a songwriter and musician in the Bedford Celts, The Qwarks and other projects and also works at the University of Sussex researching and teaching on sustainability transitions. He co-wrote Under the Pee with Lorelei.
Overall, the night was a wonderful opportunity to bring together people who were activists, artists, community and political leaders, as well as climate café participants from the original pilot scheme. While the climate crisis is very much upon us it is inspirational so see so many people taking part in projects big and small to inspire change, create change and bring the community together around one of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced.
For the full programme of Creative Climate Cafe Programmes see the Magnetic Ideals Eventbrite.