Decolonising Climate Change

Climate change tends to be a conversation about science. Scientists have always been at the forefront with their facts and futurecasting. But what do BIPOC voices and indigenous culture have to contribute to that dialogue? In North London, the artist Andrea Ling believes the answer is a whole lot. It’s art—and listening not just to science, but to the people bearing the unequal burden of climate change—that can help us find the will to come together and act. So she’s designed a series of community workshops with the BIPOC community that will become an artistic response to the environmental crisis in the form of a sound installation.

Her project is called PACHA, a word that dates back to Incan times and has various interpretations: world, earth, time, space. Andrea, who is Andean, chose this word as a simple way to convey “we are all connected.” PACHA is set in the London area known as Haringey, ethnically diverse and challenged by unemployment and child poverty. Andrea envisions PACHA as a series of workshops in which people will have hands-on encounters with the environment (foraging in local parks!), doing movement and breathing exercises, working their way up to the time when the participants tell their stories to each other, imagining their futures. These will be recorded and Andrea will curate a sound installation. Our grant will help pay for a tent, so the workshops and future art installations can happen rain or shine.

Art has something to tell us about climate change. Andrea and PACHA are helping us hear it.