EMMANUELLA
0:05
Hi and welcome to the Creative Climate Leadership podcast. This is a podcast about the radical leading role of the arts in this age of converging crises. I'm your host, Emmanuella aka Emma Blake Morsi and in this series, we speak to those doing remarkable work behind the curtains and on stage, generating systemic change in the creative sector and beyond. I'm really excited to kick off this podcast series with a conversation on climate justice. The impacts of climate change are not evenly distributed among all communities. Its effects intersect with other systems of oppression and inequality. However, arts and culture have the potential to amplify diverse voices, challenge dominant narratives, promote solidarity, and inspire imagination for alternative futures, or innovating eclectic solutions.
To help us understand the centrality of climate justice and why it is a crucial pillar of climate related arts and cultural practices. In this first episode, I am joined by two brilliant guests Farah Ahmed: the CCL Co-facilitator and Climate Justice Lead Ambassador for Julie’s Bicycle, and Vasna Ramasar: a scholar activist from Lund University who has facilitated the Climate Justice session in both CCL cohorts in Scandinavia. But before we get into it, let's find out more about those who are in the room with.
VASNA RAMASAR
1:31
Hi, Emma. Hi, Farah. And to everyone listening to the podcast. I'm delighted to be here. I'm so excited to engage in these conversations. As Emma said, my name is Vasna Ramasar. I identify as a cis-Brown woman from the Global South. I see myself very much as a learner in the things that I'm doing. Officially, I am a senior lecturer at Lund University in Sweden, where my research and teaching is focused on questions of climate and environmental justice. And I'm trying to bring a feminist and decolonial perspective to these questions. But also, how do we find the radical alternatives in the world. Outside the academic space, it's really important for me to be engaged in activism. And so I'm a founding member of the Collective Against Environmental Racism in Denmark. I'm privileged to be a core group member of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives and also work with women against destructive extractivism in Africa woman, and a post Extractive Futures collective. I am relatively new to the cultural sector. I've been engaging with it in the last few years. Always as a consumer, but now also as a producer, co-creator. And I see it as an incredible space where we can reach across different sectors of society and really engage in some of the difficult questions of climate justice, but also how do we actually start to build a different world together?
FARAH AHMED
3:14
Hi everyone. So I'm Farah. My pronouns are she/they, and I am a London based climate justice organiser and facilitator and creative producer and curator. I am really interested in how we use art and creativity to dream and practise planetary justice. So I'm the Climate Justice Lead at Julie's Bicycle. Which for anyone who doesn't know, is a pioneering, not-for-profit, mobilising the arts and culture to take action on the climate, nature and justice crisis. So I'm one of the co-facilitators of, Creative Climate Leadership. I develop resources, trainings and events, really to support arts and culture organisations and freelancers and artists to connect systems of extraction and environmental destruction and creative activism.
EMMANUELA
4:10
So in this episode, I'm excited to kind of speak to you both as individuals who are working to create more equitable and sustainable systems within the arts industry. I would love to open up with a provocation. My kick of being: What does a climate just world look like?
FARAH AHMED
4:28
For me, I think that a climate just world is one of connection. So, to each other, to other beings that we share the planet with. And just a kind of re-shaping of, I think the aspirations for what we think about as a good life right under capitalism, it's that we accumulate money and we consume and we take and we just keep extracting. And so, climate justice to me is is turning that on its head and really thinking about what we as a society aspire to away from consumption, away from extraction, and away from this disconnect that we have with one another in order to be, you know, richer or… well, sometimes it's not even about that. Sometimes it's just about being safe. And we think about safety as accumulating stuff sometimes because that's what the world, as it is, forces us into. But actually, how do we dismantle that?
EMMANUELA
5:29
For me, it's not one singular thing. I feel like a climate, just world is actually a representation of the diversity of ecosystems and solutions and thought that we'll need to kind of get to a space where we're not actually trying to have one size fits all. It’s recognising that we need this kind of eclectic approach. I see a lot of those who are typically not just underrepresented, but who are the ones who are actually on the kind of front lines or having to deal with the crisis being quite intrinsic to key decision making. I think visually, I see a world in which we live more harmoniously with nature, and we kind of get an ability to understand how our natural ways of of doing and being, whether that's through our ecosystems and our more sustainable traditional practices that historically kind of are kind of still very much treasured within Global South communities and Indigenous communities but have historically also been very much undermined. And how do we always bring that to the forefront in terms of nature, informed wisdom? And so a climate just world for me looks like an ability to see disabilities and people of various kinds of genders and races and ethnicities be part of creating change in a way that feels not only progressive, but that level of progression feels normalised. There is this eclectic need for diverse solutions and innovations. And it means that we're going to be seeing a lot of a variety of processes along the way. That means that we might not get it perfect straight away.
VASNA RAMASAR
7:01
Well, the first thing I would say is that I want to live in both your worlds. But I'm happy for now to be working to create that world with both of you. Because I think that I absolutely agree. Maybe just to reaffirm the things you've said. For me, a climate just world is a just world. Like we don't have to have climate emphasised or the centre of everything. You know, it is a world that is queer, that's neurodivergent, that is indigenous, that is all the things. And I think I like the idea of the plural of us thinking about a world where many worlds fit in. So am I just tying in to what you said? You know, that there’s space for all of the differences, that there’s space for the different ways of being and doing in the world, but also knowing in the world as being so critical. I think also just picking up on something, Farah said. Recognising the connection that we want is also about building community. About building the commons and a collective sense of who we are, what we are, how we are embedded in the more-than human world as well. And I do think that part of that is then a world where there is a rejection of capitalism, of colonialism, of patriarchy. So acknowledging those things that right now we still have to fight against and hopefully in a just world of the future, those things are given to what we do. So yeah, kind of leading to a regeneration of different ways of doing things and being in the world a re-existence as well of a greater sense of what a good life is as Farah said.
EMMANUELA
8:58
So beautifully kind of encapsulates both of what we're trying to kind of share, really is the reality that, like it, it's a given in terms of what the just world could look like. These are things that we are always striving towards, but the reality will be that we have these things kind of attainable and normalised, and that kind of systematic re-build of what we hold dear is kind of integral to all of this. Do you almost see, like the work you do having happened to you or something you have almost sought out, or was that kind of a defining moment of redirection when you kind of had been working in various industries and then you felt naturally called to climate justice.
FARAH AHMED
9:42
I didn't seek out climate justice work. I came to it completely accidentally. And, uh, well, I've always been engaged in activism. You know, I was, doing school strikes around the war in Iraq because, you know, when I was like 12 years old and, I think similarly with all the activism that I've done in the past, and climate activism now, I feel like it's something that I couldn't escape. I grew up in a working class Muslim area in Birmingham. Post 911. You can't not be politically active. And then I didn't understand how all of this connected to climate until I started at Julie's Bicycle, and I was the administrator, and I was just sort of sitting there thinking to myself, sometimes I don't really understand these conversations. They felt like a really different world. They felt really technical. They felt really middle class. They felt really white. And it was in sort of learning about climate justice and connecting it and realising that I have been doing climate justice activism for 20 years and just hadn't ever thought of it like that. And, and I think that that sort of helped me to really grasp what justice can be. As Vasna said, it doesn't have to always be a world that is climate justice holistically and that connects to everything else that you do as well.
VASNA RAMASAR
11:16
My pathway to coming to work on climate justice, has been one where, growing up in apartheid South Africa, I was faced with social injustice. It was very obvious to me. But when it came to environmental issues, my starting point was actually going in and studying environmental science and geology, and I thought that the solutions lay with science. And then I moved from there into trying to see how do we understand development, how do we understand the economy, and what does that offer? I think over time I've become more critical of all these systems, recognising the limits of what they can offer, but also how they could be hijacked so that a lot of the green solutions, the tech, the innovation, actually perpetuate certain systems of power and control and erases certain voices, certain experiences and certain needs in society. So I think I've now come to a point of saying, where do we need to look? We do need to look at some of those big, systems like the economy, but also we need to reach people not with more information, but through an embodied experience, through a connection of heart, body, mind. And so that's where I'm going away from thinking about innovation, technology, more science. But actually, how do we find different ways to relate to each other? And how do we find different ways to relate the crises that we live in, but open up the space for other imaginaries with that? I'm very cautious of the eco-modernist idea of green solutions.
EMMANUELLA
13:03
Honestly, I think you just hit and nailed on something that I feel very passionate about as well, which is the reality of, you know, this. We need to embrace the embodied experience to really get people to connect with the hearts and minds and souls, to understand the value that not only nature brings, but to meet people where they're at on that journey and bring them along with you. I think that that in of itself is, I guess, the key power of how creativity does work within the climate. Um, action within climate action specifically, is we need to embrace this variety of ways in which we kind of make space for each other and understand the value of taking people along that journey. Um, and I guess, interestingly enough, there's a really interesting quote by Diane Hamilton, which is the climate crisis is less of a crisis of the climate and more crisis of people not being able to work together. And I wondered, do you see or have you experienced some successful collaboration that has contributed towards some meaningful progress?
VASNA RAMASAR
14:00
This is only a collective project. We can only do this together. And I think I have just come back from a most amazing, 60 assembly of the global tapestry of alternatives. 63 of us met many for the first time, even though we've been working since 2018 across very different parts of the world, across very different lived experiences. You know, it's grassroots communities, from Manizales in Colombia to academics like me in Sweden and Denmark. It's, community organisers from the Philippines or from Kenya itself. And in all of that, what we are seeing is that there are so many groups who are working hard, who are creating what we call radical alternatives, just through the various ways of how they choose to organise, how they choose to make decisions, but also from the really material and practical aspects of how do you save seeds? How do you protect culture? How do we actually ensure our identities are maintained, that there are many successful collaborations. And I think what I've seen as well is that we do come from different issues. We come from different territories where the realities of what we face are very different. You know in Colombia they talk of the project of death, the narco capital, state-led violence. Right? That's not something that necessarily is what is faced by communities in Spain where they're organising common economies in a different way. But we do reach out to each other, and we do meet each other in an encounter, which I think is about trust, is about respect, and is about trying to see and know each other authentically with the vulnerabilities that we have. With the global tapestry, what we're trying to do is weave together these alternatives that are very rooted in the grassroots to say, how do we build a critical mass for that systemic change? So I think personally, I'm humbled every day by seeing the work people are doing, but also how people are reaching out to hold each other, to support each other so that we don't face burnout, that there's an opportunity to say, step back now, you've done enough. You don't have to be at the front line of this protest or go home and just rest. I love the book, Rest is resistance. I think it's awesome. The Ministry of Sleep. So just yeah, how do we actually bring care to the forefront of our work, creates the space for successful collaborations.
FARAH AHMED
16:58
I think a lot of the work that we see happening in the culture sector is, by its nature, collaborative. You know, you need a producer. You need somebody who will pay people on time. You need somebody who's going to like, make sure that you have a space or whatever. Like nothing that happens in arts and culture happens individually or alone. I think that’s also a really good example of how collaboration can work in practice. Right. And it's a good way for others to understand and learn from arts and culture. There's so many, so many examples, cross-disciplinary or cross-sectoral collaborations that are really radical and really interesting, you know, things like, community activists working with artists, working with architects and working with urban planners to, like, redesign space itself. There's people who are really thinking about materials and how they operate and to design new physical things for Earth. So there's so many brilliant, brilliant collaborations out there. And what we really need to do is to harness that collective power into a movement. You know, that's what creativity is really good at doing is building movements. Um, and that's what we absolutely can be doing together.
EMMANUELA
18:23
I love that because picking up on what you both said, I feel like it kind of really reminds me of this particular quote that I love, which is “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare” by Audre Lorde. And I think that specifically talks about this idea that, like, actually, self preservation is incredibly vital to sustaining our ability to kind of be active in the spaces. And actually just hearing from what you’ve been sharing Farah is just kind of like, what does an equitable approach look like within this context of how we collaborate, you know, recognising how we would share these resources, but also, you know, being very aware of what does it mean to work with people from various backgrounds? And I think CCL is actually a really great example of this, because I don't think I've ever been at a residential or any kind of residency where there's a real idea of like equity seen in action, you know, you have for somebody for like a larger organisation, you're benefiting quite severely from the space in which you have the resources to almost pay for an employee to be there. But as you know, if you're going from like a small organisation, you pay less to be there. And if you're a freelancer, you're paid to be there. Like, it's like understanding the difference in which that people couldn't attend and take part in this, but rather different levels of equitable resources and kind of reimbursement for time and for kind of skills. And I think what's so valuable is that we see more and more of as an action from a very practical level.
FARAH AHMED
19:47
The important thing in all of this is, as Vasna’s already said, is care. Like that's how you really make equitable work. It's not just, um, the fact that you were able to be in the space of CCL, it's that we, I hope is what you felt is that we put a lot of time and effort into making sure that everyone who was there felt supported and felt valued to be there, that everyone's, opinion is held in equal weight, everyone's experience is held with equal weight. And that you're able to participate as well, whether that's because of finances and or because of disability or because of any of these other things. And and this is how we want to model collaboration. Right. In creating spaces like this, what ends up happening is it makes collaboration easier. You know, it means you start in a place of trust, um, rather than a place of mistrust, which is what happens quite often within spaces that are hierarchical and that are not about care and not about like building that legitimate community.
VASNA RAMASAR
20:56
Yeah. I mean, I think I also just wanted to say that, you know, we're talking about this and we're not seeing it in a sense of trying to romanticise the wonderful work and groups we're part of, or that we're trying to say it's all about the hugging and singing together, right? It is also very much about the material baseline. People need to be able to feed themselves. They need to be able to shelter themselves. And so it is about talking about those things, but doing it with all of the elements that Farah mentioned, finding ways to ensure that we're not extractive of people, of their processes, of their culture, of their art in what we do, and also acknowledging the power in every room and then working to decentre it together. So it's not to avoid the conflict moments, but to engage with it in a healthy way, I think becomes so critical to creating communities where we are working together rather than just working teams or project teams or things like that.
EMMANUELA
22:00
Amazing. And I think that's exactly why what it's all about, because it's understanding that the world in which we are already cohabitating isn't perfect. And we have all these challenges that actually, because of its complexity, is very uncomfortable to address collectively. And actually, this is why it's important to form these very safe spaces that allow for these very intense conversations and in order to do so there's a lot of intentionality that goes into it that is needed to almost build up the trust, but also to build the kind of the rebalancing of power. Um, and I think it's interesting because it makes me kind of also want to ask as well, do you think of, you know, I think reality is our culture and self, you know, they are an imperfect pairing. And I just wondered like, how do you almost see, like, do you think this actually is an opportunity in terms of how we embrace and approach creative climate leadership work? And like, how do you kind of see that role of the arts and creativity within this kind of imperfect world?
FARAH AHMED
22:58
I think arts and creativity, we talk about it inspiring hearts and minds, but I think it's more than that. I think that we can model things through arts and culture that are alternative, that give people something else to hold on to when we're, when we're, um, engaging with activism or when we're thinking about the world that we're in and how we make it better. Arts and culture can actively practice some and experiment with some of these alternatives. You know, in doing so, we can really like, bring people along with us. It’s not about standing at the front of a space and telling people. It's about showing people, as we talked about earlier, it's about bringing people into the experience, and also creating space for people to have agency over their own experiences, not telling people what they should feel. That's really what, what creates the momentum. And that's what we use. That's what we use to take to policymakers. That's what we use to take to our aunts and uncles who are talking about climate change with that's what we use to put on a stage, and that's what we use in every bit of storytelling and activism that we put out into the world.
EMMANUELA
24:21
We’re remodeling these complete ways of doing things and in a way that really brings play and kind of heart to the process of it, but it's a lot more holistic. Yeah. I think what's so special is that we are given almost this license to experiment and to be kind of playful and experiment. Isn't it beautiful that they all maybe naturally represent the Global South in different ways? And I think in this conversation, because of our lived experiences, can take for granted what it means to kind of speak about the Global South in climate justice, because for us, it's a given. I think a lot of people have even touched on could we touched on it in more depth for someone who might be less familiar with a lot of this? I think actually the power is, is that we very rarely get to talk in such a blanket of being like this, when we're already are sort of talking down sometimes. Let's kind of innovate these new conversations or bring forward these new kind of ideas and feelings. And I just wondered, like if you kind of had another perspective as well Vasna, or maybe echoed another one that we've already heard about. This kind of role of self and culture and perfect kind of potential that offers us within the arts, creativity and climate.
VASNA RAMASAR
25:27
So one thing is that it's interesting to think about the Global South as the majority world. Uh, we represent the majority of the world. We also represent long histories and cultures, much of which has been deliberately erased. But there is a re-existence of that now. And I think that there is a lot of what comes from traditional practice, from Indigenous and First Peoples knowledges, of ways of doing things that is tremendously important and speaks quite directly to the arts. Because knowledge is passed down through storytelling, it's passed down through the paintings, the drawings that we have. Right. These are things that happen in almost all societies. And in some ways, we've kind of stripped that away over time that we've gone into a world which is about numbers, which is about the quantitative. And I think that we can return with this sort of regeneration of these ways of doing things with being, to actually bringing back this majority world perspective. With that, we will also bring back a lot of knowledge about different ways of being in the world. So the kind of experiments that Farah is talking about is also part of the prefigurative politics that we need to have in the world. It's about opening up different imaginaries of what it is to live in the world. And I'm not saying that everyone needs to go back to having a hut in the forest and growing your own food. That's not a reality for most of the big urban centres of the world, but it is learning about what elements from there can we draw? It is learning about how do we connect to each other. So one of the groups that I am very inspired by is the Potato park in the Andes in Peru. Um, here is a community that is working to protect the potato diversity of the Andes region. They do so holding very strongly to their spiritual beliefs about the connection between the spirits, the ancestors, the land and people. Um, but they do so in a way that they're also connecting to Unesco as a World Heritage site, to genetic seed banks and very modern technical ideas, but still holding true to themselves. And I think that we need to find ways to make those bridges. And those bridges can come through the cultural sector, because culture is always part of everyone's lived experience, and also because it is so deeply celebrated in so many parts of the majority world, you know, and with the work that I've done previously on HIV, some of the best ways to reach people was through radio shows, was through live performance. Right. Talking about deeply difficult topics, um, ones that have so much taboo to them. But do it through theatre and you open up a safe space to do so. Right. So finding these ways is, for me, really important. And that's where the cultural sector is so critical in this.
FARAH AHMED
28:51
Yeah. And the thing that I want to add on to that, which is brilliant, is that when we talk about culture, we're not necessarily even always talking about, art and culture. That is something that you go to a gallery to passively consume culture as a living thing. And it's held in our languages and it's held in like in the ways that we tell stories and like traditions and ritual and dance. Um, especially for those of us who are from the Global South, who have ties to that, to that majority world, as you're talking Vasna. And so it's really important that we always maintain that broadness of our conceptualisation of what culture is. Because that's the stuff that is also, you know, lost through colonial processes and through extractive processes. It's lost when people lose their connection to the land but also is where we find the stories of resistance that people have already been through. Right. So when we talk about all this experimentation and these alternative, imaginaries, none of it is new necessarily. It's been lost or it's been held back. It's been made illegal. It's been deliberately sidelined. And those are the things we're recovering not creating from scratch.
EMMANUELA
30:19
Absolutely. Have all these historically lost things that we are trying to almost give importance to, but not because it's something that's new, but because of the realities of how it almost is vital in terms of being able to reintegrate more holistically with the Earth and with nature to do so without oneself as part of that. Um, and I wondered, what is something that you almost feel like you wished society would care less about? Like what is almost that barrier, which that's like, oh, if you could just give this like a rest, we can move forward of this other element. And I wonder sometimes it's nice to speak to it and just be like, it's all the time dreaming and wishing. Is there anything we could care less about or like we could actively wish society cared less about?
FARAH AHMED
31:04
I wish society would care less about success. You know, we don't all have to succeed in this very specific way. And it doesn't mean that you fail if you don't accumulate enough. But also when we're doing this, this work, when we're doing climate work, success doesn't necessarily mean that you have taken down a fossil fuel corporation, because that's where we're always going to feel like we failed, if that's the first goal on the journey. Right. We have to see this, this movement as a series of small wins over and over again, because that's what keeps us going. So success is what I wish we'd care less about.
VASNA RAMASAR
31:58
I mean, there's so many things I wish society would care less about. But I think I'll come back to what Farah started with, you know, this idea of shaping the aspirations of a good life. Um, so, yeah, caring less about success, caring less about consumption, about material things. Caring less about the differences between us. Caring less about individuality. Um, but I also see that all of these things stem from a deep poverty within society, a deep hunger that we have to be seen to be heard, to be recognised, to be connected. So there's a lot of things I think we should care less about, but I think the solution is not to care less, it's to find the things that fill us up and give us the richness, the hope, the energy to do more with it.
EMMANUELA
32:54
Honestly, when you think about the context of if we could just move more towards these ways of being, you know, this nature-informed wisdom and a radical sense of how we actually approach our values in our life and fulfilment, it makes me already rich. I could just be in these little spaces already, but it's a journey. And I think it so beautifully said that reframing this mindset so that we can also sustain ourselves where we are at now in this current society, in this current day and age. Before we get into the closing. I would love to hear one thing that gives you both hope.
FARAH AHMED
33:31
My community and the people around me are wonderful. I've cultivated friends who are so generous. I've actually spent the last couple of weeks just crying on phone calls with my friends because I'm so in awe of who they are and what they do, and the care that we show each other collectively. Um, and that's how we need to move through the world and move together is with that just abundance and love and trust and generosity.
VASNA RAMASAR
34:03
I think I'll take a slightly different spin on that because I'm also constantly enriched by my community, but what gives me hope is not the people I know, it's the strangers who are not yet part of my community, but the openness with which people reach out. Uh, I've been so humbled b so many people doing amazing work, and when you just reach out to them, they're like, yes, let's connect, let's find ways, let's do things. So I think my hope comes from the not knowing. But knowing that actually these people that I don't know are there are open um, and that humanity which I see is also some part of nature is what gives me hope.
EMMANUELA
34:52
And I think it’s so valuable to recognise, you know, how this is a growing, growing endeavour and the value in being able to show openly and show warmth to each other is so important in order to continue kind of making those connections and kind of formalising those opportunities and those solutions. Um, and I kind of wondered, to close us officially, if you could both share something that's tangible, it could be a book, it could be a film you've seen, it could be a song, it could be a petition you want people to sign, or work that you want people to support of yours further. What would you love to kind of call people into action?
VASNA RAMASAR
35:31
Um, yeah. I mean, I think the work Julie’s Bicycle is doing is amazing. And just it's also an opening for people who are maybe intimidated by this topic, by these issues, don't know where to start. Um, I, I mean, for me, the Global Tapestry of Alternatives gives a huge amount of hope and inspiration. Uh, but mostly, I would say to people, strike up a conversation with someone who you think is interesting and ask them for some solutions. Build it. Build it outwards from what's closest to you.
FARAH AHMED
36:06
Julie's Bicycle’s website has a whole bunch of free resources. Um, and we also have a Creative Climate Justice resource hub. So there's like 120 different sort of case studies or resources and guides and examples of how arts and culture is putting climate justice into practice. It’s all free. Why would you not use that?
VASNA RAMASAR
36:36
I'm just going to throw in one last point in, in you saying thank you to us and also in what you're building with the podcast. It's also a reminder of the Zapatistas. We make the path as we walk it. And so it's just that invitation to everyone to walk this path with us, uh, within the cultural sector, but beyond
EMMANUELA
36:54
That open source and share and all of that love. Okay, I'm incredibly blessed to bring this first episode to a close. Thank you so much Farah and Vasna. You've been incredibly insightful to speak to. I feel like this has been a wonderfully engaging conversation to discuss meaningfully about what climate justice means to us, but equally what it could hold and the potential for it for society and wider climate action. I'm really excited to say that we'll be talking more deeply in the next episode, specifically touching on relationships and resilience. But for now, thank you so much.
EMMANUELA / OUTRO
37:34
Thanks for joining us, what have you taken away from this episode? Feel free to share your thoughts with us using #CCLPodcast
And you can find links to resources mentioned in the description of this episode by visiting the CCL website at creativeclimateleadership.com for more information.
This podcast is constructed by the Creative Climate Leadership alumni network - an evolving network growing from the CCL programme led by Julie’s Bicycle a pioneering UK-based non-profit mobilising the arts and culture to take action on the climate and ecological crisis. Don’t miss an episode subscribe to the Creative Climate Leadership podcast and get in touch with us on ccl@juliesbicycle.com
This podcast is produced by Hum Studio Interactive in co-creation with Julie’s Bicycle, with support from Nordisk KulturFond, Swedish Postcode Lottery, and Porticus.