LONGHOR IZONS:AN EXPLORAT IONOFAR T CLIMAT ECHANGE

LONG HORIZONS: ANEXPLORATION OF ART CLIMATE CHANGEintroductionjulie’s bicycleThe pressing issues of climate change andsustainability, shaping our present and future, arepermeating every corner of our business, throughlegislation, markets, artistic voice and industrialinfrastructure. It has always been my primaryambition to support the best in new music and wehave spent many years understanding theopportunities and challenges posed by the digitalage while maintaining that commitment toexcellence. Now another epoch has arrived, a muchmore profound age which requires a total and rapidmarket transformation that puts sustainability andenvironmental respect at its core. We must help ourcreative businesses shift and adapt so that we canall continue to support the best and finest in thearts.Tony Wadsworth Chairman, Julie’s BicycleIt is an extraordinary collective consciousness thatmany of us inhabit today. We live comfortably withdeeply uncomfortable information irritating theedge of our thoughts. This information, drawn fromthe rich evidence of thousands of scientists, tellsus that the earth’s climate is warming inexorably,ecosystems and species are in crisis, and we havefinite time and resources left to deal with it. In arational account of this dilemma disaster would beaverted, the narrative would conclude withhumanity restored. Common sense and heroeswould prevail. But common sense isn’t functioningas it should and our global crisis cannot be solvedwith the effort of even several heroic individuals.It needs much stronger intervention.At the heart of our necessary metamorphosis isthe removal of greenhouse gases from the planet’sstifled biosphere. This requires reconfiguring ourresource consumption, deploying technology, andadjusting our lifestyles in order to achieve asubstantial reduction in carbon emissions. Weneed to do this now if we want to preserve somechoice and flexibility in shaping our destiny.The arts should have a pivotal role in thismetamorphosis. Art can shape and shiftperceptions; it is a form of dialogue, it createslanguages between people unbounded bynationality, ethnicity, religion or class. Art has thecapacity to transcend any particular issue ormoment; it reflects and reviews the experience ofbeing human. Art does not require voraciousmaterial consumption for its health. Whenpoliticians disappoint and science is not enough,artistic engagement with climate change caninvigorate the issue from a new angle. Above allart distils for us our common humanity; itquestions and puzzles and challenges. The artscan feel and express what Jay Griffiths describesas ‘long horizons’, views of the world that take inthe time-scales of climate change but offer deeperand wider perspectives than science alone canbring.The last five years has seen a proliferation ofcreative responses to the environment; art andartists who are inspired to think, create and act.But often the arts infrastructure does not putclimate change and sustainability at its heart. It isinherently problematic if, say, an artist is releasingan album inspired by climate change withoutpaying attention to generating as little carbon aspossible in the production.This collection of essays, commissioned by theBritish Council and curated by Julie’s Bicycle,offers the perspectives of scientists and artists,their questions and a few answers. Eachcontributor has engaged profoundly with climatechange – they live by it. Each contributor hasinterpreted the relationship between art andsustainability personally, so that science and art,both calling on creativity of the highest order, bluras disciplines. For all these contributors the questfor sustainability in their life and their work hasbecome a source of inspiration, a vital definingforce within their lives.Jay Griffiths’ piece calls for high culture to grounditself in its roots, in cultivating care for the naturalworld. She describes art’s potent ability to remindus of our place within nature and to give visceralpower to the reality of climate change. Her writingis imbued with hope, joy and conviction in theultimately redeeming power of art to expressintrinsic meanings about humanity and theopportunity we have to determine our future.Antony Gormley sees that climate changechallenges some of our dearest-held beliefs:technologically-driven progress and endlessgrowth. He questions art’s complicity in thesecultural assumptions and calls us to fundamentallyre-examine the role of art and the artist in relationto climate change and the natural world. KTTunstall is joyously pragmatic and urges all thosebritishcouncil.org/longhorizons3

introduction julie’s bicycleinvolved in the business of art to sort out theirown environmental impacts. Professor DianaLiverman, a climate scientist for many years, asksfor more support from the cultural sector, both toaddress its own operations and also – crucially –to support the scientific community’s attempts tocommunicate. And Professor Tim Jackson museson the complex but transformative role that arthas in relation to sustainability and our future.He suggests that it is through the artistic processitself that society will place sustainability at itsheart, drawing upon art’s ability to articulate avision of the future, a resolution of conflicts and aconsolation for our failures.We should not have to live with the apparentparadox whereby we want the arts to activelycampaign for action on climate change, whilstalso understanding that art is not forced. Thisparadox is effortlessly solved when we assignresponsibilities appropriately: actors must play inlow energy theatres, musicians should record insolar powered studios, film sets should be sourcedfrom sustainable forest and audiences shouldknow it. Then it’s up to the artists to do their work.Much of that work will have nothing to do withclimate change; some of it might inspire millions tothink in a new way about the planet. The choice ofsubject is up to the artists but scientists andpolicymakers can at least make them aware of thechoices.Perhaps we should start by recognising that thearts share an industrial base with other sectors inthe global economy. We heat and cool, lighten anddarken, open and close our buildings, manufacturespectacle. We create, display and reproduce artand artefacts. We tour and travel and ouraudiences follow in huge numbers. All this requiresenergy – significant amounts of it – and most of itis drawn from fossil fuels. Art has a real carbonfootprint. We need to find out what ourenvironmental impact is and how we can manageit. Then we could examine our expectations ofartists as communicators. Climate scientists,struggling to communicate the dangers ofcomplacency, are calling on the arts community tohelp out. But too prescriptive an application of thearts to climate change is fraught with tension.Artists will not want their work to be propaganda.Climate change cannot be resolved through thecelebration of a single individual’s efforts or thegallant actions of a few, but through the collectiveefforts of many. This effort must extend beyondborders. The framework for climate negotiationstakes national obligation and interest as its startingpoint: can the arts’ sinuous movements across theglobe help us understand the shared implicationsof our choices? This collection has five differentand valuable perspectives each of which iscontributing to a bigger whole. And as such itchallenges the focus on the individual, thecelebrity icon, as the holder of truth and influence.All these responses to climate change andsustainability are different and nuanced; they willspeak to different people and perspectives.We should start now and build a knowledge basethat will mandate cultural leaders to act. We mustunderstand what resources (knowledge andfinancial), mechanisms (guidance and standards)and future expectations of transparency andaccountability will be required. That means ashared international ambition, with the vision andprocesses that can embed sustainability deeplyinto culture.The power of change lies in knowledge andcollaborative action.It also lies within the experience of art itself.We cannot ask artists to ‘do’ climate change butwe can engage with, help, encourage and respondto those artists who choose to make climatechange a key part of their work, and perhaps theywill inspire the rest of us to action. All of thecontributors are writing as artists or as scientists –we need to listen to what they have to say.Alison Tickell4britishcouncil.org/longhorizons

the far-seers of artjay griffiths‘IT IS IN ART THATSOCIETY FINDS ITS LONGHORIZONS, ITS SWEEP OFAGES. ART DANCES AWALTZ WITH TIME; THETHREE STEPS OF PAST,PRESENT AND FUTUREWHICH CAN SWINGTOMORROW INTO THEARMS OF TODAY, SHOWINGSOCIETY WHERE IT ISGOING, AND CAN TAKE ATURN WITH YESTERDAY TOSHOW SOCIETY WHERE ITHAS COME FROM. WITHCLIMATE CHANGE, THEFAR-SEERS OF ART ARE AREQUISITE.’britishcouncil.org/longhorizons5

the far-seers of art jay griffithsPicture this. The audience is watching aperformance of She Stoops to Conquer, dressed tokill, in feathers and pearls, bowties and waistcoats.Floodwater, meanwhile, is lapping around thepaving stones outside. By Act Two the water hasrisen, up through the foyer and along the hallwaysand corridors, and by Act Four it has reached thefront rows. The audience stares rigidly at thestage, ignoring the water, not stooping to noticemere nature and necessity seeping into theirshoes.There is an absolute, irrefutable reality to climatechange, as real as wet shoes and rotting carpet.It is larger than politics, as wide as ocean currents,and its effects are the realities of survival and life.Artists – writers, sculptors, musicians and poets –have responded to this, turning reality intoartwork, because so many artists have a politicalcompass magnetised towards common humanity.Distilling an image to one drop of pure turquoise,and with this one drop colouring the waters ofsociety, artists effect a sea-change. It is their roleto do this, to illustrate, to cast light on subjects,the light by which society sees more truly andmore richly. Artists are messengers acrossboundaries, for art transcends the confines ofnationality – it is an emissary of kind universality.Climate change forces the need for a greaterintercultural communication than ever before, andartists – those with the keenest hearing andperfect pitch – can tell the stories of thingsunimagined, making immediate the ex

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