Midlands
Emerging Artists
Melissandre Varin
Artwork
Remoteness, (absence of) language, and the quotidian as elements inscribed in Afro and Caribbean diasporic contexts are investigated in this short film. The fractal assemblage of personal archives with poetry emerging from conversation with significant others is an invitation to think about food, land, and racial justice with love.
On Climate Change
it is about observing, absorbing, and throwing up too many times. But the beauty encompassed in the celebration of collective care including the earth and more than human beings is the biggest beyond-border reward.
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Camille McCawley
Artwork
Between the Cracks highlights how our landscape is rapidly changing from green to grey. Our lives are consumed by concrete. We are accustomed to spending time indoors because our day jobs and social life depend on it. This in turn affects our mental wellbeing and ability to connect to those we love. Green spaces enable us to breathe - both physically and mentally. Nature needs to thrive, for the sake of the climate which is in dire crisis. But what if we spend more time in nature, would we do more to protect it? Would we be happier for it?
On Climate Change
The future depends on the actions we make today. Governments across the world have a responsibility to create and enforce policies and laws to protect the environment. Big corporations need to re-think their profit margins and focus on helping nature instead of destroying it. As consumers we vote with every penny we spend and every decision we make. It can be as simple as buying second hand clothes or boycotting big brands. We must do better at connecting to nature to realise our dependency on it. Climate change is happening now, we cannot wait any longer to take action.
Chadwick Jackson
Artwork
A slow road to nowhere, is a look at where we are headed and how we will get there and how the same people who caused the problems are now trying to determine the solution with little to no acknowledgement, self awareness or reflection as to how we got here.
On Climate Change
It all started with Colonialism, and until we address that we are not going anywhere.
Ingrid McLaren
Artwork
Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus. Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet. Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet. Etiam ultricies nisi vel.
On Climate Change
It is a disgrace that people trying to protect the planet for years have been made to feel humiliated and naïve for caring about the environment. Now it is everyone's job to ensure the future of humanity here yet so many people pretend that we have time to procrastinate. Sustainability is the present, not an afterthought, not somebody else's problem. Not everyone can actively research but it’s heartbreaking that it has been left so late to act. I want our story to keep going because humanity can be so brilliant, but so destructive at the same time. I hope we can do enough.
Seun Matiluko
Artwork
Seun's poem touches on what human beings leave behind after they are gone. It discusses how we all have things which are meaningful to us during our lives but that, after we are gone, the planet has to suffer the consequences of looking after all these things, some of which are toxic to our planet’s very existence.
On Climate Change
We will all die one day but many of the things we have used in this life will last for years after we are gone. That teddy bear you used to sleep with at night, that plastic bag you used to carry some extra clothes to university and that blanket your mother swaddled you in soon after you were born. All of these things will outlive us but might contribute to the death of our planet and so we must take reducing waste, donating unused items and recycling more seriously to halt climate change and save our beloved Earth.
Ryan Sinclair
Artwork
This piece symbolises the complicated dynamics of two 'siblings' where one is overlooked far more than the other, in a jealous family feud. Using pollution as the cornerstone, between the metaphorical relationship between some cars and cigarettes. With the cars being prohibited from entering Birmingham city centre without paying a clean air fine, whilst the cigarettes are exempt of this rule despite causing similar amounts of damage to the environment.
On Climate Change
I would be concerned as we are seeing specifies dying out, irregular temperatures and a growing population of humans but not necessarily reflecting in nature or animals.
