Art is an expression and above all graphic, and therefore, it is a formula also used in many movements. The climate movement was not going to be less.
«Verwurzelt im Widerstand» by Oliver Scheibler (COP 23 Bonn, 2017).
«Rooted in resistance – Images from the Rhenish lignite region.»
https://klimakollektiv.org and www.ausgeCO2hlt.de
The painting depicts stories of resistance in the Rhineland and makes references to growth criticism and climate justice. It is inspired by the «True Cost of Coal» banner, which tells stories of coal mining in Appalachia (USA).
Brandalism http://brandalism.ch (COP 21 Paris)
Brandalism refers to «Brand» (corporate branding) and «vandalism». It is an international collective of artists challenging corporate power, greed and corruption around the world. The network is comprised of some 130 artists, at least those listed on their website. Their work focuses on using advertising spaces that normally celebrate consumption. Brandalism uses «sub-advertising» as a lens through which we can see the intersectional social and environmental justice issues that capitalism creates. For COP21 in Paris, they collaborated with over 100 local activists and 80 artists from the global north and south, installing 600 ads in advertising spaces across Paris on the eve of the start of the climate talks.
ADAO (Against Environmental Destruction, Organize!) Espora (COP 16 Cancun)
Different political art collectives called from ADAO-Espora a graphic call for the mobilizations against COP 16, in order to contribute with an itinerant and street art exhibition for climate justice. This initiative was part of ANTI-C@P, the coordination of groups against the COP 16 in Cancun after the fiasco and repression of Copenhagen. It involved La Otra Gráfika, Escuela de Cultura Popular Mártires del 68, Sublevarte Colectivo, Convención Metropolitana de Artistas y Trabajadores de la Cultura, Marea Creciente México, Justseeds, Cordyceps, ZAM, Furia de las Calles, Rising Tide North America, Gráfica de Lucha.
ADAO Espora : https://adao.espora.org
Sublevarte Collective: www.facebook.com/sublevarte.colectivo
Fight Graphic: www.facebook.com/graficadelucha
Just Seeds (USA) (justseeds.org)
Network of graphic artists from the USA and worldwide who support political initiatives such as climate campaigns by contributing their art.
Art not oil (artnotoil.org.uk)
It is an artistic campaign based in the United Kingdom that denounces the oil companies’ whitewashing through art, and with it, everything that oil activity entails. Obviously, one of its objectives is the impact on the climate of these companies. It has a digital gallery.
“Give a Shit” by Fossil Free Culture NL and Teresa Borasino (COP 21 Paris)
http://teresaborasino.com/work/give_a_shit
Dutch-based Peruvian artist Teresa Borasino led Fossil Free Culture NL’s Give a Shit project, made up of youth, activists and climate justice groups. The project took place at the Paris COP21 Summit to criticize the lack of solutions from UN climate summits in 20 years. The project confirmed that «IPCC reports have shown that the science behind climate change is well established, but governments are failing to act on it. They are failing us.» The campaign replaced the toilet paper rolls in the COP21 conference center toilets with rolls with the IPCC report printed on them.
The campaign proposed that delegates should give a shit about the situation and «stop wiping their asses with science».
Fossil Free Culture NL (fossilfreeculture.nl)
This is a Dutch artists’ collective against the impacts of the oil industry. Their «aim is to confront the sponsorship of oil and gas in public cultural institutions in the Netherlands».
«Carillon du Vent» COP17 Durban (South Africa)
by Strijdom van der Merwe (www.strijdom.com) y Ogilvy Johannesburg
Van der Merwe, Ogilvy Johannesburg and Greenpeace realized the project «Carillon of the Wind» (bells) aiming to claim the potential of wind energy as a renewable energy source. It was a project based on natural elements (bamboo) and citizen participation, in which people participated in its elaboration and adding their name.
Banksy x XR
A mural associated with Banksy appeared on London’s Marble Arch in the midst of the Extinction Rebellion (XR) protests for this organization on April 15, 2019. XR demands «zero emissions and zero reduction by 2025» and «participatory democracy.» On that day thousands of people blocked some of London’s busiest roads and bridges, and attached themselves to street furniture, demanding that governments «take decisive action on the climate and ecological emergency.» The demonstrations were part of a worldwide campaign, which included rallies in at least 80 cities in more than 33 countries.
Banksy is known for his political message, from the Palestinian conflict to the Zapatistas, to Greenpeace for whom he created the ‘Save or Delete’ campaign to highlight the problems of global deforestation and fight the illegal timber trade.
www.banksyprints.com/banksy-supports-extinction-rebellion-with-a-new-mural-at-londons-marble-arch
«LAGRIMA (tear)» and the Water Police, by Hermann Hack
German artivist who has participated in climate summits with his art: Bali 2007, Copenhagen 2009, Lima 2014, Paris 2015, Bonn 2017. In several he has reproduced environmental refugee camps. In Lima he declared the Goethe Institute as a Global Brainstorming Exploration Camp and together with students from the Art Academy, they created the Water Police, a bucket brigade that drew attention to this valuable resource in and stimulate reflection on how to secure the water supply in the future.
Oxfam exhibition «Canvases for Change».
Oxfam took this exhibition to COP 14 Poznan (Poland) in 2008.
It consists of artworks by artists from the South showing the catastrophic effects of global warming on their communities and also expressing hope for urgent action to limit climate change.
This was yet another way in which oxfam visualised the impact of the climate emergency on the world’s poorest people.
www.oxfam.org/climatechange
«Make them eat carbon»
Oxfam International (www.oxfam.org)
With this action Oxfam, as part of its campaign «GROW: Food. Justice. Planet» campaign, Oxfam denounced at the Durban Summit in 2011 (COP 17) that the food on which we all depend is at risk from climate change. Oxfam criticized that «instead of bringing solutions to Durban to help protect the millions of people on the frontline of the climate crisis, some countries are blocking progress in the talks”.
aplaneta.org 