Artist Statement on Climate Change

Artist Statement on Climate Change for The Land Foundation: Seoidin O'Sullivan

Climate Change

Climate Change is the human race finally comprehending the impact our modern livelihoods and lifestyles are having on our natural environment. It is an opportunity for a large, collective realisation that some of our modern life choices and ways of living have a destructive effect on ourselves, our communities, other countries(usually poorer nations suffer the worst health consequences) and our planet. This knowing is not new. Many wise people have warned us about this over the last 100 years or more(see Silent Spring, Rachel Carson and The One Straw Revolution,Masanobu Fukuoka), but unfortunately we did not listen. Climate change is the environmental crisis reaching such a logger-head that the evidence can no longer be hidden or the truth denied. Averting or even slowing down Climate Change may seem like a daunting task, but many inspiring small-scale local projects all over the world give evidence that other ways of living and being are indeed possible. In order to address Climate Change we need to make lasting connections between the political, environmental, socio-economic and cultural facets of our lives. We need to comprehend that we all have a shared responsibility to bring about the necessary changes so that together we can set a new direction towards a more sustainable planet that works with and has a deep respect for nature.

Climate Change is a cultural as well as an environmental challenge. The Arts community globally (like so many other professional and business industries) has been very slow to even acknowledge climate change. Through cross disciplinary dialogues and the sharing of information and knowledge, we have the opportunity to creatively address and discover how this challenge can be met with solutions that will make a better world possible now and for the future.