Conversations on Creative Climate Leadership is a new podcast from Julie’s Bicycle centering stories from our global community of Creative Climate Leaders who champion the role of culture in climate activism. Our hosts musician and zoologist Louis VI and JB’s Climate Justice Lead Farah Ahmed talk with some of our Creative Climate Leadership alumni who have generously shared their personal insights on navigating the climate crisis and creatively leading transformative change. Over six episodes we’ll unpack important questions around belonging, communication, creative activism and how to lead courageously with care.
Big thanks to our funders and partners who have supported the work of the Creative Climate Leadership network and the making of this podcast: Pro Helvetia and Stiftung Mercator Schweiz for CCL Switzerland; as well as the European Cultural Foundation's Culture of Solidarity Fund, and Porticus. And a thanks to our host Louis VI, member of Earth Percent - the music industry’s climate foundation, who support JB’s work on climate action with the music community.
Conversations on Creative Climate Leadership Podcast
Episode 2: INTEGRITY
SPEAKERS
Louis VI, Julie Forchhammer, Eliki Reade, Farah Ahmed
Farah Ahmed 00:00
Music. Okay, Louis, you came back for more.
Louis VI 00:06
I did. And welcome back to everyone listening. My name is Louis VI. I'm a musician and zoologist, and I'm hosting this podcast right now, and I'm here with Farah.
Farah Ahmed 00:15
Hi I'm Farah, and I'm the Climate Justice Lead at Julie's Bicycle.
Louis VI 00:19
Can I ask you something Farah?
Farah Ahmed
Go for it.
Louis VI
Why did you ask me to do this podcast?
Farah Ahmed 00:27
Well, Louis, I asked you to do this podcast because you've got this beautiful mix of being a musician and really understanding the heart. And you're also a zoologist. You understand this in your head as well. And I really wanted to be able to take us on this journey of mixing the heart and the head to get to the real depths of what Creative Climate Leadership means.
Louis VI 00:51
Cool. I'll take that. We should probably remind people of why we're here as well.
Farah Ahmed 00:57
In episode one, we heard from Ntando and Toby, who were talking about Play. So I thought we'd go to a different place this time, and we're going to be exploring Integrity.
Louis VI 01:09
And who are we going to be here from this time around?
Farah Ahmed 01:11
So we've got Eliki, who's in Australia, and Julie, who's in Norway.
Eliki Reade 01:17
Hello, everyone. My name is Eliki Reade. I am based on unceded land, Wurundjeri country, in a place that is Indigenously known as Naarm. In contemporary settings, it's known as Melbourne in so-called Australia. I am currently involved in a divestment project that is looking to place pressure on art organisations within broader Australia to shift their finance emissions. And that's part of the overt goal of the organisation, but the covert side to it is to try and frame climate change as a cultural issue and something that we need to learn to shift and adjust and take on together in our broader community.
Julie Forchhammer 02:19
My name is Julie Forchhammer. I'm placed in the mountains of Norway, and I'm the co-founder of a small organisation called Klimakultur, which means climate and culture in Norwegian. Sometimes I explain our work by mentioning Julie's Bicycle, the organisation who's hosting this podcast, because we're kind of like a miniature edition. We're kind of “Julie's Tricycle”, maybe, placed in Norway. And we work in Norway, which I recently have started calling the North Korea of fossil fuels, because the discussion about fossil fuels in Norway is so restricted. It's so limited, with the state being the biggest owner of our biggest oil company. They're called Equinor, but also the whole, yeah. We are global scaled oil producing country, and we are only 5.5 million people. So in the last years, we've seen how influential the oil industry is in the arts and culture sector as well, and it's just everywhere and also with the state functioning as an oil lobby itself, which also means that our ministry of culture is providing security for future oil licences and so on. So it's, yeah, we are all ingrained in this. And it's very important for me to say that I recognise that fossil fuels plays a role in the climate crisis, because not that many people in the Norwegian culture sector can say that.
Louis VI 04:13
Eliki and Julie, welcome to the podcast. Very happy to have you here with us. So this series is all about Creative Climate Leadership. So I reckon, let's start by looking at those words, Creative Climate Leadership. And what does that mean to you? Eliki, do you want to start us off?
Eliki Reade 04:34
For sure, yeah, happy to launch from that. Yeah. I guess to me, creativity is sort of bound in a sort of code, a cultural code. So I am connected to Fiji and part of that diaspora that's based in Australia. And to me, creativity is sort of a core element of life and a way of knowing ourselves and passing on knowledge and passing on culture and passing on a sense of connecting to land itself. And so when I think about creativity, I think it's fundamental in addressing or rehearsing some of the responses to the world and some of the challenges that we're faced daily. And then, when I think about climate, I'm inherently tied to, much like what Julie was sort of referencing, Australia is a very large coal exporter within the world. We're very much beholden to state capture from the fossil fuel lobbies, particularly in our politics, and part of that is that we are also a settler colony, as a lot of folks would know. So to lend oneself to the fight for climate and reconnection to these lands is to lend yourself to the causes that find themselves in First Nations Justice. And I lend my own efforts to trying to challenge the fossil fuel lobby with lending my efforts towards First Nation sovereignty and the fight for justice within that realm, because it's inherently connected to the Pacific and the degradation of my own home lands.
Louis VI 06:34
Yeah wow. And, I mean, I guess that's the context of that is very felt. Because I think, across the world, we know that there was the voice referendum just over a year ago in Australia, which I think, you know, has quite dramatically failed First Nations people in Australia. So there's very much that idea and feeling that, yeah, there does need to be a big cultural shift still, and I think people were quite surprised that it wasn't there yet.
Eliki Reade 07:06
Being on the ground, it's easier to not be surprised. It's actually quite devastating to see. It was a shock, but it is also sort of devastating to see how much inertia there is in our culture, and it comes out in the politics and social dynamics.
Louis VI 07:23
Julie, what do you think for you? How do those, those three words, Creative Climate Leadership, kind of occur in your day to day work.
Julie Forchhammer 07:32
I think just learning about those words, participating in the Creative Climate Leadership course, what was such a big wake up call for me and talking about Norway being the North Korea of fossil fuels, I really felt like coming from the Scientologist or fossil fuel sect and then seeing the world for the first time. And I'm a bit ashamed of saying that, because I've been working with climate and sustainability issues in the cultural sector for so long in Norway. But it wasn't until I met all the other brilliant people in this leadership course that I learned that, oh, it's not only just about waste management at festivals or how much you fly or single use plastics. It's about climate justice. It's about decolonising your practices. It's about Indigenous peoples. It's about freedom of speech, you know, who can talk about these issues. And so that was a wake up call for me. And I think, I don't feel like I have wasted 10 years working on just practical sustainability issues for the culture sector. But I really think that I jumped on this train so late that I have so much that's undone, and I have so much still to learn, so I'm still learning every day, and it just opened up a new world to me. And I really, really hope that Klimakultur can make a difference in Norway, opening up this space and start connecting with Indigenous artists and communities and climate activists and just change the whole narrative, because I am a free person. I can say what I want, and I don't have to be afraid of losing my funding from the state, because they won't… we're not getting any money from them anyway. So this is a new path for me, at least, and I'm really, really happy, and I think we can make a difference, because we are such a small country. So to be a really outspoken person and organisation about these issues are super fun. And finally, we've gotten a bit of funding, not from Norway, but this year, we are starting on a new project called Culture Against Petroganda, because we have adopted the term “petroganda” as what is happening in Norway. As a description of what is Norwegian energy culture, because so much of the fossil fuel industry is state owned, and so much of their marketing is directed at children through sports and education programmes and culture. So you think that the term petroganda is super describing of what's happening here, and I think Eliki, you can agree that it's happening in Australia too, and in Canada and in other countries with the same kind of setup as we have. So we're going to work on changing the culture, instead of being used to spread the petroganda. But how can we use culture to work against the petroganda to tell another story. So that's where my Creative Climate Leadership Programme has led me, and it's just super exciting. It's a new path.
Louis VI 10:52
Yeah, it's a really interesting perspective hearing about, yeah, both of you are in fairly heavily fossil fuel states. And I think it's, I think it's easy, when you're not somewhere that is that heavy of a producer of fossil fuels, to think, “oh, but everyone needs to just, you know, come together and divest”. But if you are somewhere there, as you say, has literal petrogand targeted children, which is obscene, there's a whole other challenge. But it's interesting because I mean both countries as well. If you were ever going to have places that move away from fossil fuels, both countries are also, you know, rich enough and in a position enough to quite easily lead the charge on that, you recognise maybe sooner than the rest of us. And maybe this is better that actually it is very much about a cultural shift first, because you have to have the bottom up, you know, public mood change for policy to really have a difference.
Eliki Reade 12:05
Yeah, that resonates a lot. I think. Some reflections that I've had in trying to organise around climate change within the arts as an industry itself, and then the reflections that I've gotten through engaging with local government, was that… and maybe some feedback that I've even received through all levels is that it the pressure can't just exist at the policy making side of things. There needs to, as you're referring to, be as much a cultural shift away from dependency on fossil fuels and enough collective pressure to be able to normalise or force the shift away from fossil fuel dependence. I think, something that we're inherently weary of or aware of in my own context, is also that to not just become a transition economy and to not just over rely on the same rates of consumption that we do, whilst expecting that shifting to dependency on things like lithium extraction in other contexts is going to be the justice focused end point that we're looking towards. And there are masses of lithium reserves in Australia as well, but we're transitioning away from fossil fuels to then over reliance on certain energy sources. Actually be a justice centred approach, or is it that we have to reflect on our role in consumption as as as a as a broader community, and think about how to balance that out with things like circular economies or mutual aid, or like, what are other practices that we can invite that can sort of cut across the many issues, rather than just focusing on single issues on the ground where we are?
Julie Forchhammer 14:18
I think what you're saying about the economy and future economies and the arts is super interesting and very relevant. Because we see there's so much talk about culture being the new oil we really have to be careful with thinking of culture as a quick fix and as a solution to a fossil fuel economy or something. Because I also see that those kind of drivers in the culture sector, it's for the big institutions, it's for the big organisations. It's very corporate, and the winners are the big players. And we need everyone to be winners in this new culture economy. And it also matters on where does the funding come from and who gives it out? And we really work a lot with just making visible the power structures of the cultural sector. Let's take an example of our national museum, where, if we want to see change in those big cultural institutions, we need the boards to want to change as well. But as it is now, the Chair of the board of our national museum is an oil executive appointed by the state. So so many of the boards of our cultural organisations and leading institutions are state appointed, and we are still living in a country like Norway, where fossil fuel experience and gravitas is seen as very positive, and you can totally be on the be appointed two boards of our leading cultural institutions if you worked 40 years in start oil or Equinox or the other oil companies, and that means it really closes off the climate debate also in the culture sector. Because, yeah, the board is not on your side. We have a ministry, a minister of culture, talking about climate. She cannot talk about fossil fuels, and that is crazy. You know, also without Arts Council rolling out a big climate programme now that's been partly set up by Price Waterhouse Coopers. So you have the whole like the big consultancies companies guiding the state in facilitating these programmes, while those consulting companies are still working with the whole of the oil industry. So it's just, it's a shadow world of an oily underground at the highest level of our society, which I had no clue about. I didn't know I was ignorant. Yeah, it's entrenched. When I started out, I worked as a music journalist as well, a very bad one, in a college radio 30 years ago. And of course, we played Rage Against The Machine a lot. They were really hot in the early 90s. And you know, “F you fuck you, I won't do what you tell me, fuck you, Rage Against The Machine”. And it's just this year I understand what they meant. Oh, that's the machinery they're raging against. And fuck you the Norwegian state. I won't do what you tell me. So I’m reliving my old rebel from the 90s.
Louis VI 17:27
We need a new Rage Against the Machine really innit, or just bring that back. Yeah, it's terrifying how entrenched it is. And it seems like, yeah, you know Julie, your example of how it's set up in Norway is actually a really good example, like a microcosm of actually what's going on in the rest of the world. You know, each episode we've got of this podcast is we've got, we pick a specific word, and this one's Integrity. And it seems like integrity is a quite a hard thing to to manage to keep because, you know, if you especially you know, if you're working to shift, you know culture and minds through art you know the board and the funding is inherently coming from the place you're trying to shift it from. You're already doing a ridiculously hard balancing act. So how do you make ethical financial choices when you're trying to work as artists and organisations, but balancing the need for financial resilience that should do what you want to do?
Eliki Reade 18:33
One of the things that I keep coming back to is that the arts I feel like is so beholden to…because it is so able to express itself in a way that is vocal and values led, or at least seemingly gestures towards values when it comes under the microscope for its integrity and for like, for its own practices and contradictions. It can be so easy to…It can be such a pressurised environment and so easy to point out those contradictions when it steps out of line. Which is all to say that I have more questions than answers in this realm.
Julie Forchhammer 19:20
So that's what we are doing in Norway now when it comes to financing and the arts, also to get the numbers, because we are talking a lot about if it's fossil fuel sponsorships, or how is the fossil fuel industry or destructive industries, how are they financing the arts? And how can you say no as an artist or as an institution? But what we see is that the artists that or the musicians that are playing the Big Oil events we have in Norway, it's not the small, independent artist, it's our biggest. It's the biggest names. And when we see, like our National Opera House, the big, fancy, lovely, new building down by the riverside…by the ocean side in Oslo, when we see that they are sponsored by ConocoPhillips, and they get billions from the Norwegian state, and they have so many other finances. So the amount of money they get from ConocoPhillips, one of the world's worst oil companies, with a real, really bad traction, it's only like it's such a small percentage of their annual income. So also, to get those numbers, you know to say, okay, but if you are the National Opera of Norway and you get a gazillion Kroners from the Norwegian state, maybe you don't need the ConocoPhillips logo on your website or to host events for the oil industry. I think it's more of a mind thing, speaking of the North Korea of fossil fuels…”yeah, but if we say no, they will just go somewhere else”. Yes, that's the point. Let them go and let them hear the word no once in a while, because in Norway, also in the cultural sector, the wording to the fossil fuel industry is also “Yes, please, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. How can, how can we facilitate? How can we help you?” Give them the word no once in a while, and it would be easier to say no more often.
Louis VI 21:17
Yeah. How restricted, Julie, are you, are Norwegian artists or people that work in the culture sector to expose this oily underground you talk about… can, how much can you change the consciousness of Norway before, you know, the funders and these board members that are so entrenched in it, you know, start actually actively censoring that?
Julie Forchhammer 21:40
I think there's a much bigger fear for that happening than it actually being something that will happen. So I think both the artists and the organisations could push much more. But we have seen, like the last year and a half, there's been a lot of grassroot movements in the arts organisations with…we have like 14 Norwegian arts organisation who has decided on wording, on saying no to new fossil fuel. And they represent, like 20,000 artists and culture workers and over 500 festivals and venues. So that has been decided and it comes from the grassroot, but then it stops. You know, that kind of engagement and knowledge doesn't go further up in the cultural elite in Norway.
Eliki Reade 22:28
Yeah, I feel like the politics of refusal is, like, part of the key. Actually saying no, we're not going to do this event. Or, I don't know, there needs to be a recognition that, as artists and arts labourers, we can refuse our labour to these spaces. And build a power and build a grassroots move back to the DIY, take it away from the sort of professionalisation and stagnation that arts has become. And like this, sort of Oliver Twist-esque industry and rather, take the power back, because that is Marx, the means of production that we have. That's…
Julie Forchhammer 23:16
Rage Against The Machine! We're gonna take the power, yeah, actually, yeah,
Eliki Reade 23:20
That's it. That's it. It's like people want to engage with culture, but they want to set the terms for us. So no fuck that shit. If you want to make shit, make your own. Sorry. I'm really getting like, I get hyped up about it, but it's like you want to make your own things cool, go do it. But if you want to do it with integrity, that's where we have our power. I feel like… arts general strike! Let's go!
Louis VI 23:44
Yeah. I mean, I think everyone low-key wants that to happen, or high-key even. And I think it is an interesting time for all this conversation, because, you know, particularly as a musician, the music industry is as broken, obviously, as it could be. I think no one is earning any kind of significant money. It's all going into the pockets of three major labels and, you know, and basically one single entity for…not distribution, for streaming. And so we are in a place where we could just be like, yeah, fuck you. I think we need to start recognising what making art was about in the first place, and it is about having human connection and speaking to people in a way that isn't censored or overly…I reckon…how was the best way to put this? It's like, overly saturated by the thought of, “is this going to be something that is going to be played on a playlist or put into a pocket that is sellable or marketable?” rather than going, let's make something that's gonna make people feel different about something that we need to be feeling about. Do you think that art does have this ability to make people understand…in not so much of this bubble that we're talking in now, what is truly going on and what why we might need to think differently about our attitude towards fossil fuels and and the environment?
Julie Forchhammer 25:32
I think in Norway, we see a big community build up between the climate issue, political issues, like with Gaza and Palestine and those justice issues that the people mobilising in one area is also mobilising on other topics. And it's just, yeah, it's a big community build up now with artists leading the way and seeing those connections, and it's just… it's changing. I think it's also…I think the Gaza issue is also changing the way we can talk about climate issues, because the despair that people are feeling watching the genocide in Palestine is the same kind of despair people working on climate issues are feeling. It's humanity going under.
Eliki Reade 26:27
As an industry, I think it requires a lot of shifting and changing to land in a place where, like, art, is able to perform with a way of maintaining its own integrity and humanity. But as a methodology, as a way of being, I feel like it still has so much validity in this conversation, and it won't respond necessarily, in my eyes as an industry, but there's so much good will amongst artists, and there's so much feeling. I think it brings it back to the sense of feeling that I think is inherent in all of us, and it reminds us that that is key. And that's something that I think has, in my experience, been missing from the climate action space that I yearn for, and that was sort of developed for me through my involvement with Pacific Climate Warriors, was just bringing it back to what the feeling is and why it is that we're fighting in this cause.
Julie Forchhammer 27:31
Yeah, just a quick note on that. Eliki, thank you for reflecting on this. I saw a video recently with Martin Luther King talking about the white moderates stopping progress, where he talked about how it's not the KKK or the Ku Klux Klan or your enemies that is stopping progress, but it's the white moderates who claim to be your ally, who claim to be on your side, but who are saying “don't move so fast. Don't engage in this way. Don't be so clear. Don't…” who is stopping progress. And I think for the culture sector, I can only speak about Norway, but I think sometimes that I see that every day with people like “yeah, it's okay with you, Julie, because you're so political and you're such an activist”. And I'm like, I'm just saying what the UN climate panel is saying. I'm saying the same as the Pope. I'm saying the same as the UN General Secretary. It's not that radical. It's not activistic. So stop being a white moderate, being afraid of talking about the truth. If we can't do it in Norway, the richest country on earth for Christ's sake, who can do it?! Sorry.
Louis VI 28:43
Yeah. 100%, 100%! That's a beautiful insight as well, because it is, you know, I think “the stop moving so fast” phrase is being expressed in 1000 different ways. You know, whether it's for stopping the genocide. It's like “yeah, right, yeah, it's bad. But let's not…let's see how it plays out” kind of thing. And everyone else is going…women and children are being slaughtered. Like, definitely move fast! And apply it to the planet, like, we're losing all the beautiful nature and biodiversity on this planet, we definitely need to move fast. As you said, it's not radical to react to science, unanimous scientists saying this is really serious. And, you know, it's got to the point where, I think everyone, there's not many places where people could say they're not feeling it directly. Now, something I always want to ask, mainly because coming from the UK as we are, which is, let's not pretend that the UK is innocent in any of this. It's the originator of most of the planet's problems. It invented a lot of… a lot of the industrial capitalism and destruction of Indigenous lands that we are contending with now. But it's also the most…one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. So I always want to know, you guys being in different parts of the planet, what the nature is around you now? Because we've done a lot of talking around divestment, arts, shifting culture, but it always comes back to what we're doing it for, which is, you know, a shared love of nature.
Julie Forchhammer 30:40
Welcome to the mountains of Norway. I moved from Oslo 10 years ago to run a festival here in the mountains called Vinjerock, and I stayed here in Valdez, and this morning I woke up and it had snowed, but not too much, so I didn't have to go and move all the snow. But every day I go out in the garden, it's so fun to see which footsteps are in the snow. Is it a squirrel? Is it a moose, as it once was, those huge footsteps? Is it a hare? Is it a deer? And during the winter, just to listen to the birds and see, oh, they come back from Africa, the migrant birds, they made it all the way. So I feel really, really lucky, and I think it really helps me in my work to be brave and to work with integrity, to have the mountains and the forest and the animals around me every day and to try and stop my dog from killing the birds and the squirrels in my garden as well. That's also an issue.
Eliki Reade 31:50
Yeah, I live in a pretty urban scape, Melbourne City. Naarm is definitely…I'm currently sitting in the Catholic University, kind of in Fitzroy. You might recognise that name in your own context, but there's a lot of layers of Anglosphere history that sits atop beautiful Wurundjeri Country. But the only way that I know how to tap into the feeling that we were speaking, that I was speaking to earlier was… I went to the beach. Was a 39 degree Celsius day. I don't know if you measured it by Fahrenheit or Celsius, but I went out. It's hot. It's bloody hot, I'll tell you that much. Yeah. So I went out to the beach, about a 45 minute drive. Not so great that I drove there, but from where I live, which is quite hard to get to, and I went into the cold waters. It's in the bay there. And something that connects me both to this Country, that's what we call like land, or what Aboriginal leaders and people refer to as land, is Country with a capital C to name, that it is an entity, a living entity, which folks are responding to and in relationship with. So I feel like salt water connects me to this country, but then also back to the Vanua of my own land or context. And that's something that I hold in my heart as I try and do this work.
Louis VI 33:26
Beautiful. I'm very jealous of both.
Julie Forchhammer 33:29
But you know, Louis, if the Vikings hadn't messed up the UK to begin with, maybe your colonising activities wouldn’t have been that messy.
Louis VI 33:40
I'd never thought of that. I'd never thought of that. I mean, not that the UK needs any, you know, release from its responsibilities. But I'm happy to say…I've got half Caribbean side. So I am both of the coloniser and the colonised which is interesting. Yeah, the complexities of being mixed race. But yeah, so, I mean, God…before, we could talk forever. I really, I really believe there's, there's so many different threads that I'd love to follow, but we've unfortunately got to wrap it up. But before we go, people listening to this would have got a sense of what climate leadership, Creative Climate Leadership is. For some, they would have known before. For others, it would be brand new. But to end this, you guys have got the floor for people listening. What's one thing you'd ask the person that's listening to this now to do next.
Julie Forchhammer 34:42
Wow, that's a big ask.
Louis VI 34:45
It's a big ask for the last one. It doesn't have to be anything too crazy,
Julie Forchhammer 34:49
No, but I think people need to change the perception of what Norway is as a country. We talk a lot about our oil fund, our pension fund, how great and ethical that is. And we are like the biggest investors in Chevron and Exxon and Repsol and all the world's biggest oil companies through that. But I really want people to help us, help us in the North Korea of fossil fuels, to learn and to challenge us, because Norway is also seen as a culture leader on exports and on climate issues as well. So challenge the Norwegians you meet on how they react to our fossil fuel industry. Because in 2024 Norway was the country in the world investing most money in new oil and gas offshore, more money than any other country on Earth, and we have 5 million people. So please challenge us. If you meet a Norwegian, put them on the spot. Please do, it's fun.
Eliki Reade 35:51
Definitely, I feel like there's this saying that was going has been going around, probably in the last year or so that I feel it connects to the heart of the issue of like, all this sort of conversation that we've had recently, and it's touch grass. As you were sort of speaking to Louis, like, what is the, what is the nearest place that you can sort of be in communion with, you know, the land or the waterways that you're on, and connect and observe and do something artfully and see how that actually connects to the heart of the issue and why that moves you.
Louis VI 36:25
Think they're both brilliant things. They're both things that one, yeah, one speaks to your connection, the other one holds the other people accountable. So good. Yeah. Thank you so much, guys. It's been it's been beautiful chatting.
Farah Ahmed 36:47
Louis, what are your thoughts on that? What did you learn?
Louis VI 36:50
Well, this was a deep one. There was so much. I mean, I think we were all quite surprised at how we'd not seen or so obviously seen through Norway’s facade of putting themselves as quite a progressive place. I mean, in many ways they are. But also, Julie was quite hardcore, and saying, Yeah, Norway is the North Korea of oil and and the petroganda behind that it's quite…it's quite scary, and it's quite a microcosm for like, how the rest of the world is kind of operating. We just accept those narratives around Scandinavia being a certain way without really diving too deep into it.
Farah Ahmed 37:32
Yeah and it's, it's not just Scandinavia. There's so many places that fossil fuels touch or that that petroganda touches in the arts and culture. You know our pensions, as Eliki is trying to sort of get to the heart of our pensions, where our money goes, how so many of our infrastructures are built around us, and then how it becomes so much harder for us to to create new worlds and new infrastructures. You know, I think that sometimes, as I said to you at the start of this episode, that you you're somebody who really gets to the heart of this, but arts and culture is also, it's an industry, and there's a head that needs to be changed as well. Yeah.
Louis VI 38:21
I mean, Eliki spoke so beautifully on this. Actually, this is one of my favourite parts, when they said that that you've got to move more artfully in life, and that the kind of professionalisation and industrialisation of art is is something that's got to be contended with when making art, because it can, it can take it away when it's actually something that's deeply spiritual and profound and should be communicating about difficult things. And it shouldn't be thought of in terms of, like, the success and how many times it's going to be listened to. It should be something that does, you know, infiltrate and as they said, cross bridges and boundaries. I think moving artfully is a beautiful way of actually interacting with nature and this whole wider problem.
Farah Ahmed 39:16
And it really gets to the heart of why we're here, of what art means in our culture as well, of what it means to us as humans, as people. It's more than just something that we passively consume. It's in our language. It's in our food. It's in our very ties to the land that we stand on.
Louis VI 39:38
Yeah, and I felt like they riffed beautifully off each other, because Julie's, you know, coming from this cultural sector in, you know, what she describes as, yeah, like a basically, a Petro state country, but then you know that there's a lot of power in the in saying no, and Eliki was saying the same thing, but also talking about it from a beautifully eloquent Indigenous perspective, because they're living in, you know, so called unceded part of Australia, but is of Pacific Islander origin, and I think there's so much beauty in that. Because even the way they spoke was artfully. There was a lot of warmth and softness to describing quite tough topics like divestment and and things that don't sound particularly sexy or cool even, and they made them sound, you know, something that was actually creative and interesting. And also the really important point, they're both, you know, Australia and Norway, both heavily fossil fuel countries. They rely on that, and about divestment from that, particularly from the arts, and moving away from that, but not moving into another system that is just straight into the lithium system of the electric cars. And I had a really interesting podcast the other day that Eliki really triggered in my mind. And it's the whole idea of just moving from kind of extracting one thing to the earth to another. I'm thinking it's okay, is kind of just approaching, you know, the same problem with the same mindset and the same kind of colonial extractivism and but there's a fact that I think a lot of people don't know, which is, the road infrastructure of the planet is not built to sustain lithium cars, which are 2.5 or sometimes three times heavier than your average car. So like, there's, there's car parks and roads that are collapsing all over the place. They're spending millions in the budget that I don't know. You know, I don't look at this stuff enough, but I know, I've been told that they're spending millions in the UK budget to fix potholes because of electric vehicles. So it isn't the solution that people think is, and people need to look more towards…I've become a big proponent of trains. Now I'm not going to be train spotting anytime soon, but like, if 80,000 people can be transported on you know, your average train, you know, the equivalent of that is a 13 lane highway, and that really puts things into perspective. And Eliki really beautifully framed, that it's like we've got to be more imaginative with where we want to
Farah Ahmed 42:36
Yeah, and I think it all comes back to infrastructure, and it doesn't, as you said, it doesn't sound cool, it doesn't sound sexy, but we need to build those. We need to build this new world from the roots, from the ground up, yeah,
Louis VI 42:49
And get and get the fossil fuel industry much more used to saying no. And also, I'm all behind an artist general strike as well.
Farah Ahmed 43:00
On that note, thanks for joining us. The next podcast is ready to listen to wherever you get your podcast from. Thanks for listening to conversations on creative climate leadership. It's a podcast from us here at Julie's Bicycle, a non profit, mobilising the arts and culture to take action on the climate, nature and justice crisis. Big thanks to our funders and partners who've supported the work of the creative Climate Leadership Network and the making of this podcast, Pro Helvetia and Stiftung Mercator Schweiz for CCL Switzerland, as well as the European cultural foundations, culture of solidarity fund and porticus. And a thanks to our host, Louis VI who's a member of EarthPercent, the music industry's Climate Foundation, who support JB's work on climate action with the music community. Thanks for listening.