Note: I modified the purpose of this newsletter as of April 6, 2024 to 'For those frightened by the ecological crisis and searching to heal our relations'. I also include the podcast version of this posting as a link in this main posting as opposed to separate email. You can also subscribe to 'calm presence' podcast on your favorite podcast player. Thanks Claude
Note: for the podcast version of this posting click here.
On March 19, 2024 fellow Ottawa artist Barbara Cuerden wrote the following comment on Facebook in response to my ‘about david maggs’ art and the climate crisis’ posting:
‘I'm with Bill McKibben, who answered the question "what can an individual do?" with "stop being an individual. Join a group..." and this may be a problem for artists who cultivate, or who are supposed to be cultivating a unique or separate "voice"...’
Thanks Barbara.
I agree that the cultivation of individual voices (signature culture) versus collective voices (community collaboration) is an ongoing tension in the arts.
What concerns me most is the low level of collective engagement from artists about the ecological crisis in spite of the efforts by organisations like SCALE, the CSPA and Music Declares Emergency Canada (see Climate action heads to the Junos with Music Declares Emergency).
Page 4, What Do Canadians Really Think About Climate Change in 2024?
This is not unique to the arts however, see What Do Canadians Really Think About Climate Change in 2024? and the graphic above. Ça va mal…
I wrote about this my listening as a ‘way into’ the ecological crisis posting where an arts colleague told me that :
Most people are extremely anxious and concerned about the climate emergency but can’t face it. They feel powerless and hopeless so they just keep going with business as usual by default. Be very gentle with them. Try to help them find ‘a way in’.
I’ve been thinking about these ‘gentle ways into’ the poly-crisis : a term originally coined by French theorist Edgar Morin that refers to the various crises that feed into each other, exacerbating already difficult circumstances.
Barbara makes a good point that individualism is a barrier to finding ‘a way in’. Have we been trained to not work together?
Former Canada Council Director and CEO Bob Sirman put it this way in e158 bob sirman - engaging with the artistic experience:
We're not just talking about saving the environment. What we're first and foremost trying to get people to do is care for the environment and you can't care for the environment unless you feel part of it, unless you feel attached to it, unless you can see outside the building and understand we're not living in bubbles. What I mean by bubbles, especially, is that we're not living in an individual bubble, that we have social responsibility, that we make connectivity with other people, building blocks for community, for betterment of various kinds.
What can any one individual do?
A better question might be ‘what can we do as a community’?
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