Makati City, Philippines — The Climate Reality Project Philippines launched the third Poets for Climate exhibit held at the University of Makati, in cooperation with the City of Makati and the British Embassy in Manila.
As a response to Agam Agenda’s global campaign for creative climate action When Is Now, the Poets for Climate project amplifies the role of the arts in climate action and climate change policymaking. Since July 2022 it has rallied youth from around the world to write poetry that speaks to the impacts of the climate crisis and calls for urgent action from world leaders.
Rooted in the thematic framing of the When Is Now campaign that centers on biomes, Poets for Climate invites writers, activists, and youth to creatively investigate how landscapes and places they call home have changed due to the climate crisis. Through a series of workshops, the Agam Agenda and the Climate Reality Philippines have guided participants from all over the globe to express their lived experiences of the changing climate through poetry.
The poems created in these workshops were exhibited in the City of Makati in October 2022, in the latest global conference on climate change, COP27 held in Sharm El-Sheikh Egypt in November 2022, and most recently at the University of Makati in February 2023.
This marks the second exhibit with support from the City of Makati and the British Embassy in Manila, reaffirming the importance of cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaborations for climate action.
“The power of art lies in its ability to bring people together to reflect, discuss, and take action. This exhibit will be an inspiring reminder to all of us that building a better future with collective action is possible,”
Vice Mayor of Makati City Monique Lagdameo.
Interdisciplinary collaborations like the Poets for Climate project also encourage us to view the climate crisis as an integrated experience, one that is embedded in entangled relationships that affect all of us. Carissa Pobre, Strategist for Creative Communication at the Agam Agenda, illustrated at the University of Makati exhibit how a global creative campaign like When Is Now allows for a holistic picture of climate change to be depicted.
Rooted in lived experiences and representing diverse realities of a changing climate, the poems written at the Poets for Climate workshops link the stories of one place or community to another. Through this process, connections are made between people and places across different parts of the world, widening and anchoring our understanding of the impacts of the climate crisis.
Following the launch of the exhibit, Carissa Pobre together with Aimee Oliveros, Engagement Lead at Climate Reality Project Philippines, co-facilitated a workshop with more than 40 University of Makati students. The poems generated from this workshop will be published in the virtual gallery at whenisnow.org and join the growing chorus of creative voices calling for climate action.
