To cultivate connectedness and reimagine solutions, the Agam Agenda and the global organization Climate Reality Project are collaborating to link the shores of imagination of writers and artists speaking on climate change.
The effects of the climate crisis are diverse and simultaneous, rapidly changing places called home, and disproportionately impacting the world’s most vulnerable people. By engaging climate issues through creative expression, anchored in place and lived experience, the Agam Agenda–Climate Reality partnership aims to open up the conversation to the imaginative work needed to address the crisis.
Three branches of Climate Reality—Africa, Philippines, and Canada—are mobilizing local artists and writers in their communities to share these powerful messages. Writers are called upon to submit poetry that reflects on the changing landscapes they have directly witnessed and experienced. Visual artists also create mural paintings, bringing the poetry to life in public space.
In the Philippines, two murals have been unveiled, one in Iloilo City and another in Isabela City, responding to poetry by Yewande Omotoso (South Africa) and Nanditha Ram Satagopan (India) respectively. A forthcoming mural is also being made in the northern city of Baguio.
In Johannesburg, a mural depicting a dandelion, found across the grasslands of South Africa, showcases the poem by Kütral Vargas Huaiquimilla (Chile): a visual representation of the fragility of life and the power to act on climate change.
In Canada, six graffiti artists collaborated to create several murals, designed to be an open-air art studio in the streets of Montréal. They responded to creative works by Neha Sinha (India), La Múcura (Colombia), and Daphne Marie L. Siega, Kimmy Guigard and Lori Dumaligan (Philippines).
The poems and artworks from this collaboration are in support of the When Is Now creative campaign, as a means to reach political leaders and amplify the agenda of climate vulnerable peoples’ in the international arena.
Alongside the murals, workshops will be held throughout August where participating writers will build skills on how to write about the urgency and solvability of the climate crisis, while keeping the integrity of scientific evidence. Renowned writers, including Nigerian activist and poet Nnimmo Bassey, South African feminist, artist, and community worker Malebo Sephodi, and Filipino poet and teacher Marjorie Evasco, are collaborating for these ‘pebble poem’ workshops with climate activists and creatives across the world.
A virtual exhibition based on this collaboration for When Is Now will also be held at the 27th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
Watch the videos of the making of the murals here:
- Murals in Johannesburg
- Murals in Montreal
- Murals in Iloilo and Isabela
