CLIMATE CULTURE

CLIMATE CULTURE is an exhibition inviting people from all walks of life to consider what a new collective culture might look like.
It explores art, culture and climate activism, while posing the question ‘How are climate and culture connected‘?


Inheritance

Poem by Theresa O’Donohoe

You sit on my lap and I rub your head, laying you down into your warm cosy bed
I look at your face and it is all a glow, innocently smiling, not needing to know
When you are my age will you look back and wonder why your ancestors felt the need to plunder?
Why didn’t they stop while they still had a chance, dancing around, the consumerist dance

A legacy of greed, of buying and selling, where lies and deceit was all they were telling
A land once proud, free and noble, lost as a pawn in an economy gone global
Why are you cold while the men guard the woods, sold by a handful of greedy no good
Why is the water unsafe to drink, as fracking filled chemicals flow into the sink?

When you are my age will you look back and curse the people that plundered to fill up their purse
Will you rue the day they first struck oil, bringing industry, growth and dis ease to our soil
Why did mankind feel the need to burn, to consume, to advance at every turn
Feel the need to spray, to extract and exhaust the beauty of nature at such a high cost

Why did energy come with such a dire price compromising the climate despite so much advice
With all of this change at such a fast pace species have gone without hardly a trace
How could you know what’s happening the trees, the plants, the animals, the birds and the bees
Piece by piece they are fading away, gone from our sights a little more every day

Is it fair to be leaving you to pick up the pieces, to adapt and survive as with all other species
Without the bees to pollinate your food, resource wars and water no good
So I kiss you my roosters, monkey, dog and little ox, knowing the peril of my little flock
Then I promise I will do all that I can to bring about some sense, an awakening in man



Shades of Grey
by Ruby Moss
Stranded
by Ruby Moss


The Obscene Anthropocene
by Grace Lynch
Environmental Blues
by Gary Tyrrell
A Future Urban Model as a Self-Regulatory Biological Organism
by Lina Dovydenaite
Night Tide, by Nine Fern



As an ecological artist and curator I feel it is important to consider the art of sustainability in terms of a collective culture. The exhibition CLIMATE CULTURE invites us to visualise a new global culture, one that takes into consideration where we are now (in terms of the climate crisis) and where we would like to be in the future. A culture that considers humans and nature as INTERCONNECTED. A culture that considers universal TOGETHERNESS”. 

Ashleigh Downey

For more about the exhibition concept and the open call process, see links below:
COME TOGETHER for the LOVE of CULTURE
CLIMATE CULTURE : online exhibition CALL OUT


Thank you to An Taisce and the Climate Ambassador Programme for partnering on this project.

A sincere thank you to all who submitted their thoughts and creative expressions on what a new culture might look like.
Below, list of contributors and country they are based).
Daniel Akinjise (Nigeria) – Vi Brazh (Ireland) – Martin Breen (Ireland) – Steven Doody (Ireland) – Lina Dovydenaite  (Oslo/Stavanger) – Nina Fern (Ireland) – Lia Foley-Kelleher (Ireland) – Katerina Gribkoff (Ireland/USA) – Ruth Hickey (Ireland) – Rachel Leddy (Ireland) – Jenny Leslie (UK) – Grace Lynch (Ireland) – Thomas Oisín Morelli (Ireland) – Ruth Moss (Ireland) – Sanghamitra Mukherjee (Ireland) – Aishling Muller (Ireland) – Fié Neo (England) – Theresa O’Donohoe (Ireland) – Ciara O’Flaherty (Ireland) – Alison O’Shea (Ireland) – Nathalie Pavone (Ireland) – Ana Pobo Castañer (Spain) – Deimante Stankeviciute (Ireland) – Cathy SteverGary Tyrrell (Ireland) – Eva Van Dreumel (Ireland)- Amy Wilde (Ireland) – Trevor Woods (Ireland)

A sincere thanks to all who has took part in CLIMATE CULTURE