Why make Art about Climate Change?
“Dermot, you know what?
It’s not about the planet getting hot.
That’s just an excuse to demonise
energy and commerce and the rise
in our quality of life. ....”
“…. Mud slides, falling roads, whole trees floating
broken, skeleton stories, goading
lorries in sideways slumber where they fell,
cars in circling arabesque before the swell
till overcome, they dive and uptail.
Flood gates fail.”
"We need narratives as imaginative journeys : towards a better world, to play out our worst fears and to get into the heads of those who think differently to us. I think of artists as Social Dreamers: in the words of Gordon Lawrence, ‘making manifest the infinite knowing that is present’ in societies, institutions, groups. What if artists are tapping into what is present in the dreamtimes of western society, that which is driving us literally mad? Making performance work is the only thing that gives me the energy to believe that the world can change."
TESSA GORDZIEJKO is a theatre producer, director, poet and performer. Creative Director of Imove Arts which produced The Second Breath, a circus/music promenade outdoor performance exploring psychological dimensions of climate change; and breath:[e]:LESS. a spoken word/ music performance about threat, grief and global warming. She has worked closely with the Climate Psychology Alliance researching this work, and recently performed The Divided, her narrative poem inspired by the 2015 Boxing Day floods, at the CPA Members’ Day 2016.