Prodding it with a stick, or staring at the moon.
Dan da le Motte at the LADA Programme
A whole bunch of years ago I was fortunate enough to be co-sponsored by the London Theatre Consortium and the Young Vic to become a ‘Creative Climate Leader’ with arts/environmental charity Julie’s Bicycle. I met some great sector leaders on this programme, who have become peers, mentors and friends, such as Lucy Davies, who was then Executive Director of the Royal Court (now Chief Executive of Brighton Dome) and Anthony Roberts, Director of Colchester Arts Centre. It was on this programme that I had my (LED) lightbulb moment; that environmental action in arts and culture settings goes beyond recycling empty toilet rolls or turning off the light; it is about imagination and creative thought, which is the basis of my climate justice workshops for artists and arts organisations.
Zoe Svensden is an incredible academic and artist working in this field. She has coined the term ‘High Carbon Culture’, to describe, in her words:
‘the result of the intersection between environmental questions and the power structures of capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism. It explores the way that environmental damage might be a question of culture; with implications for how we treat each other that is much more deep-rooted than technocratic questions that only address how to reduce carbon emissions. It’s about speed and efficiency and [how] systems of injustice and prejudice are embedded in ways of doing things that are considered so normal we can’t see it. And it is about the kinds of consumer lies we tell ourselves about being green.’
Another way of seeing this is, as I would put it, ‘convenience culture’, where decisions are made on the basis of ease rather than ethics. This ‘ease’ is often guided by the (again) capitalist notions of time that we work within - we tell ourselves that to take more time in our decision making or actions is to dither, or to be inefficient. It’s the eating a meal deal at your desk between meetings scenario that we’ve all found ourselves in.
Fevered Sleep commissioned me to deliver my Creative Climate Justice workshop for them and the wider arts community at St Margaret’s House recently. The workshop examines how we can identify High Carbon or Convenience Culture wherever it exists, which might just be the first step to doing something about it. It’s not about guilt-tripping, cancelling or calling people out, (I am complicit in High Carbon Culture too!) but acknowledging where and how it thrives. And primarily that is our relationship with time.
Here are just a few examples.
Fevered Sleep’s most recent project Time Keeps The Drummer identifies and explores our complex relationship with time from the outset, and sets up a dynamic between performers and audience, each in their individual moments in time.
When I was Artist-in-Residence at St Margaret’s House a few years back (to co-make the Queer fungi-based cabaret for children Be More Mushroom) me and co-creator Nina Scott didn't have a clock in our studio, a conscious decision to be present with our work and each other, not to be dictated by pre-determined structures of a ‘normal working day’.
Zoe Svendsen has told me that time operates differently in her home than it does when she leaves the house.
Last week I was with LADA, the Live Art Development Agency, exploring co-created climate-based performance with children. The LADA programme was based in a mediaeval church in King’s Lynn, with 1000 year old angels looking over contemporary discussions on climate chaos. We discussed how children’s concepts of time and duration also work differently. This is something I witnessed during my brief stint as a nanny during Covid, when many people experienced time both stretching and contracting during the pandemic.
Any method by which we are able to subvert our relationship with capitalist time, by queering it - that is interrogating it, laughing at it, prodding it with a stick - or by attempting to understand it through the eyes of the more-than-human, is a strong start. But it’s also easier said than done.
So, my advice (other than book me for this workshop) is to be deviant and rub up against the grain where and when you can, and forgive yourself for when you can’t. And while High Carbon Culture might be what Zoe describes as a ‘hyper-wicked problem’ (a problem that is so big you can’t see it in its entirety - a bit like staring at the moon) at least you can see it in the first place.
‘The times are urgent. Let’s slow down’
Bayo Akomolafe.