A feeling…
Which created an idea…
To create a feeling…
“The role of the revolutionary artist is to make the revolution irresistible.”
– Toni Cade Bambara
350 from Hans Hansen on Vimeo.
Art vs. Climate Change:
The climate crisis is an unprecedented challenge of an unprecedented scale, we need a new species of movement to confront this global threat. Climate change is a problem caused by human culture, thus we need to employ culture in confronting this crisis. To successfully stimulate change, people must feel the reality of the climate crisis and their role in determining its future course. Art might hold the key to unlocking the cultural shift necessary to turn the tide on climate change.
ArtShift, is designed to incite and inspire a creative response to the climate crisis among the rising International Youth Climate Movement, by arming this new generation with practical skills for creation and imagination.
Now ArtShift has joined forces with Power Shift Europe to bring this feeling into our growing European Youth Climate Movement.
In this context ArtShift is about the way Power Shift looks, smells, sounds and feels, to each and every person taking part, in each and every country.
The ArtShift team will be working along side the Power Shift Europe team, and each regional Power Shift team, to bring these feelings into Power Shift Europe as a movement, and within the context of each country event.
To do this ArtShift hopes to work individually with each Power Shift team to:
- Make sure everything that power shift is about is communicated in a range of ways, using art and culture before, during and after the event as a way to reach and inspire people.
- Bring an art space to each event to allow space for creative collaboration.
- Make each day of action a creative celebration of all our movement is about, as well as helping the teams use art and creativity as a tool of action.
Practically ArtShift takes the form of either training and skill share workshops with the team prior to a Power Shift, or though the Art Shift team working with the team on the ground at their Power Shift event.
Skill trainings offered will include puppet making and puppetry, silkscreening, street theatre techniques, cantastorias, activist animation, philosophy of change, creative direct action, activist art skills (sign, banner, t-shirt, poster making), history of activist art, street art skills (stencils, wheatpasting, etc.), and musical instrument making. Each workshop will emphasize techniques using recycled and repurposed materials, allowing participants to create effective visuals without a large budget.
We would like these workshops to be conducted as skill-sharing exchanges and thus we will be networking with local artists and activists and encouraging them to join with us and to share their own techniques and knowledge about how to make effective art for social change.
Through this we hope to both show, and use, art and culture as a powerful tools for change.
Through working with the teams as well as local artists and art groups we hope art and culture will become the context through which a Power Shift is created, shaped, built and then continues to grow.
If successfully embraced by the rising youth climate movement, art has the power to become one of the most effective tools we have in confronting the culturally embedded roots of the climate crisis. The youth of the world know know that this struggle will last our entire lives. To sustain our momentum and to win, we know we must make our movement as beautiful as the planet we are fighting to save. This fight is young and so are we. The struggle cannot be underestimated, and neither can we.
If you want more info or to take part in ArtShift then drop the team a line:
Kevin@350.org and Anna@ukycc.org
ArtShift are funded by Artist Project Earth
