Ecocide: Arts, Resistance and Social Change
Issue 6 October 2014
Can Artists Change the World?
Sculpture, photography, architecture, and biology are some of the disciplines that intersect in Ackroyd & Harvey’s work, revealing an intrinsic bias towards process and event and often reflecting urban political ecologies by highlighting the temporal nature of processes of growth and decay. In this exclusive interview they discuss their work and ideas with Helen Moore.
Liberate Tate – ‘Parts Per Million’
Art activism by Liberate Tate references the growing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, measured in parts per million (ppm). Steadily increasing since the onset of the industrial revolution, levels now exceed what scientists consider to be a maximum ‘safe’ limit of 350 ppm. This piece also critiques the role of oil companies in contributing to this, and their sponsorship of the arts.
Culture of Resistance
In this interview with Lierre Keith, the American environmental activist and author discusses ecocide and industrial civilisation; liberalism and radicalism in the context of social change; and a vision of the urgent need for a co-ordinated resistance movement.
Greenspin video poem
‘Greenspin’ is a collaboration between poet Helen Moore and film-maker Howard Vause. Liberating and exposing the language of corporate advertising and ‘greenwashing’, the film references the creative practice of subvertising through the medium of satirical videopoetry, with an ante-narrative in the form of an ‘ad’ for the spoof Greenspin PR company, followed by the performance of the poem ‘From Greenwash, A User’s Manual’. The piece won 3rd prize in the Liberated Words Poetry Film Festival 2013.
David Cooper, British Surrealism in the Age of Ecological Crisis
Helen Moore speaks to the artist David Cooper about how art can play a significant role in raising awareness of ecological issues. The interview discusses his surrealist influences and how surrealism can be an effective approach to tackle the issue of climate change
Split This Rock: socially engaged poetry in the US
Split This Rock explores and celebrates the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for change: reaching across differences, considering personal and social responsibility, asserting the centrality of the right to free speech, bearing witness to the diversity and complexity of human experience through language, imagining a better world.
Earth Justice
Helen Moore’s award-winning poem records the mock ecocide trial held at London’s Supreme Court in 2011. The project was initiated by Polly Higgins, an environmental lawyer, barrister and author, as part of the Eradicating Ecocide campaign to make ecocide the fifth international Crime against Peace.
Transformational Heresy
Maddy Harland, editor of Permaculture Magazine, uncovers some contemporary heresies within our society’s worldview. Unpicking the current, destructive mythologies of our time, she believes, could support social and ecological transformation.
Seize the Day’s ‘Frakka Hakka’
Filmed in Balcombe at the controversial Cuadrilla fracking site in West Sussex, Seize the Day’s ‘Frakka Hakka’ song is performed by the band and protestors at the Balcombe Community Defenders Camp.
Fracking Comic
“What is fracking, and why are people so concerned?” Produced in association with Frack Free Somerset, Frances Howe’s brilliantly drawn comic puts you in the picture.
Resistance and the Art of Freedom
Dr. Vishwam Jamie Heckert talks openly about activism, his yoga practice, and the inner freedom he’s discovering to tackle internal and external structures of domination