Human civilization, in the social structures we have created, is impacting on the planet in such a way that global average temperatures are rising at a rate far faster than ever seen before. As temperatures rise a series of tipping points will be passed, such as the melting and disappearing of the polar ice-caps. These then significantly accelerate the rate of temperature rise, beyond our control. The impacts are already being felt around the globe.
While we need to recognise that the lifestyles we have become accustomed to in the West are unsustainable and have to change, we also have to see that simply changing our lightbulbs is not the answer. The problem is on a systemic level. We need wholesale social change in terms of the ways in which we organise, think and act. This often feels like an insurmountable task, but one path which I feel forms a part of a solution is creative expression.
Creative expression speaks to people on a level which news headlines and magazine articles cannot reach. We are increasingly surrounded by images and slogans warning us of climate change and how we should be doing our bit by buying more environmentally ethical products, but this doesn’t put us in a receptive space emotionally. Dance, sound and visual art enter our emotional bodies and affect us far more readily. If there is a way of shifting something in people through these mediums then I see a strong value in creating work with this aim.
With making art, we are offering an opportunity for a different means of access to watchers/interactors that isn’t solely to do with ‘experiencing’ nature and intellectually appreciating the madness of our way of life, but also offering in-roads to a somatic/felt body of experience. The more open we can make the actual performance of each work, the more headless and heart-led the dissemination can be, the more we can re-script a relationship to climate change and natural phenomena. It seems that one problem with head-led/top-down organisation is the constant sense of ‘ought’ – we ought to do this or that, but actually, for most, this is truly an abstract decision, and there is no emotional or felt truth there. By contrast, where there is passion which is impossible to re-create without an emotional connection, there is no obligation, just a rightness. This creates a place of less thinking, more feeling, which as meaning-making human beings, is essential in order to change our behaviour, and subsequently, thinking patterns. Change is what we are looking at, in terms of natural phenomena, and movement IS change.
Working Ethos:
It is important for my work as a whole, and the delivery of all my projects to foster an awareness of how these implications affect the entire process of the work – not only in terms of content, but how the work is rehearsed, constructed, and realised. I accept that there is a juxtaposition here – that the making of my work often necessitates the use of computers, fossil fuel energy, and many other things which are not ideal from an eco-ethical point of view. However, I do see this juxtaposition as providing some possibility to create change – if I were to disappear into the woods, grow my own food, and live a simple, land based life, I would be withdrawing from the rest of society. This is not my interest, because my interest is much more to create community, and to make contribution to social change. In this way, there must be a meeting point – some common ground to share, so that the ideas/suggestions I bring bare relevance to other people’s lives. In view of this juxtaposition I see that there is a balance to strike between remaining true to my values which present an alternative way of engaging with our environment (including no short haul flights, an ethos of re-use and recycle, vegetarianism, organic, local, seasonal food buying, boycotting international corporations) and finding some common ground with my audience so that I can engage them.
