The Colour of the Climate Crisis – in pictures
The Colour of the Climate Crisis is an exhibition by the environmental social initiative Do The Green Thing. It showcases the work of 24 Black and other artists of colour exploring the relationship between racial injustice and climate injustice.
The exhibition will launch on 31 October and run until 2 November at Pipe Factory in Glasgow, Scotland, with a selection of works to coincide with the start of the Cop26 global climate summit. The works will form a permanent digital display at www.thecolouroftheclimatecrisis.art Further gallery exhibitions will take place in London and New York in 2022
‘Black people, indigenous people and people of colour put so much love into the earth, only to suffer the catastrophic and often fatal consequences of our racist society and systems,’ explain Yo-Janda & Kushiaania – the illustrator duo behind the UK-based Mush Studio. Let us reap what we sow is rooted in the story of their grandparents who emigrated to the UK in the 1960s after growing up in small farming villages in Punjab, India, where their love of the land was their livelihood
Jacqui J Sze: Harmony between Nature & Humanity (illustration, ink and pen on an antique map)
Born in Hong Kong and raised in the UK, Jacqui J Sze is a multidisciplinary art director with a background in concept, design and photography. Her calligraphic, mixed-media piece Harmony between Nature & Humanity contemplates colonialism, cultural traditions and the climate. Central to the work is the endangered south China tiger – it serves as an urgent call to protect our world, while also embodying cultural symbolism of strength and resilience
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Ukpong is an interdisciplinary artist working out of the UK, France and Nigeria. ‘My art-photographic works from this series address historical and contemporary socio-environmental issues in the impoverished oil-rich Niger Delta, my birthplace in Southern Nigeria. The staged photographs, produced with the participation of local subjects, employ performance and visual storytelling to create poetic reflections on cosmological paradigms, regional myths and real-life experiences’
Ayo Fagbemi & Friends: Protest poster designs
A collection of posters brought together by the strategist Ayo Fagbemi and his collaboration with a group of activists and designers. Fagbemi says: ‘We wanted to showcase the talent of a variety of different activists and designers, presenting the power their voices have when working together. This project looks to revise a historical problem that often negates the voices of people of colour out of the climate conversation. With our pieces we look to centre them, putting them and their diverse missions to the front in their own unique way’
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‘The cacti of the Sonoran Desert, much older than most living humans (averaging 150 to 200 years old), reach only upward to the sky, gazing in wonder, harmony and respect for the energising light of day and the restful shadow of night,’ says Román Serra Cisneros, a Mexican-born multidisciplinary artist and object collector. Their work expresses a celebration of Mexico’s rich culture, the vibrance of diversity, the gaze of nature and the mirroring between human and non-human shapes
Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark is a self-taught digital sculptor, writer/researcher and curator living and working in London. ‘Drawing reference from renaissance figurative monumentalism, this artwork serves to centre Black bodies at the heart of the climate conversation, identifying how injustice towards marginalised communities and environmental activism are interconnected’
Wong Ka Ying is an artist, writer, and curator based in Hong Kong. The artist critically reflects on contemporary social, cultural and gender issues using a range of media from performance art to social media. Wong describes White Luck as ‘a cruel coin-pitching game inspired by modern society, just like the games you would find at amusement parks’. The game reflects an experience in which whiteness is prized and privileged, and without whiteness, there is struggle. The rules of the game are alongside the work. You are invited to ‘play’
Raiz do Mundo is a feminine knowledge passed from generation to generation about self-support and planting as a human right, and connection with the energies of nature, explain Fábio Setti and Tamara dos Santos. Their work splits into two phases: the first is about connection with ancestry and spirituality – represented by a young Black woman in a garden. The second is about female organisation, knowledge, self-sustainability and community – represented by a group of women symbolising phases of the moon
Internalised Colonialism draws on Phang’s background in design and synthesises insights from her podcast Crystals, Clits and Climate. Finding patterns of experiences, she highlights root causes of collective oppression. Hannah explains: ‘Through messaging on a mirror, this piece invites the viewer to reflect on and explore their own internalised definitions of desire and success, and how we often unknowingly participate in systems of oppression, including forms of oppression that disconnect us from ourselves, others and our home planet’
Farida Eltigi: The Nubian Story (illustrations and audio narrative)
Farida Eltigi is an Egyptian illustrator exploring culture, representation, identity and diasporas, influenced by her upbringing in Cairo, Dubai and London. The Nubian Story elucidates the underrepresentation of the Nubian people – a Black ethnic group in Egypt and Sudan that has been displaced for 50 years. Eltigi used social media accounts dedicated to preserving Nubian culture, to inform her piece, as well as audio narratives by two Nubian women to tell their own stories of Nubia from ancient times until today
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Shyama Golden: Nature vs Future (digital illustration)
Shyama Golden is a Sri Lankan-American artist, illustrator and designer with a background in oil painting, now working from Los Angeles. Patterns, people and nature are common elements in her work, in which hyphenated-Americans often play a protagonist role. Golden says: ‘Nature vs Future is a portrait of a fictional young woman who represents the global majority and Indigenous people who are not only disproportionately affected by climate change, but actively speaking out and organising against the ravages of extractive capitalism.’
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Seals founded his eponymous design studio (2015-2020) straight out of college and his renowned font foundry (Vocal Type) just a year later. Vocal Type is a diversity-driven type foundry, inspired by the lack of diversity in the graphic design industry. Each typeface highlights a piece of history from a different underrepresented race, ethnicity, or gender—from the women’s suffrage movement in Argentina to the civil rights movement in America and beyond
Selina Nwulu is a writer and independent consultant. She has been a voice for climate justice for over 10 years, working with grassroots, charity and arts organisations in both a creative and consultancy capacity to strengthen narratives around the gaps between race, justice and the climate crisis. Home is a Hostile Lover is a poetic piece that takes the reader on a journey through different sites of climate violence to reflect on notions of migration, home and belonging
Ngadi Smart is a Sierra Leonean artist who created this work for an article written by Dr Esme Murdock, in which the author wrote: ‘The horrors of the last 500 years on Turtle Island (North America) – are obvious, well-studied and well-known. These histories live in the minds, hearts, bodies and spirits of the global populations who have borne the brunt and lived the apocalypses that white supremacist colonisation, imperialism and capitalism have created and continue to create’
31 October 2021
The Guardian
