Lough Neagh 3 | amiclarke

MEETING THE LOUGH ON ITS OWN TERMS

RESEARCH AS PROCESS

This page is about the ways that we are approaching the complexity of working together as well as how to grasp complexity in it's fullest extent, as a necessarily intersectional approach to the ramifications of climate change

community engagement advocacy shared knowledge de-colonising

Climate change often suffers from a messaging problem as its complexity can simply be overwhelming. My work addresses this through providing a multi-sensory experience that bridges art, science and technology, making the complex issues surrounding climate change more accessible and engaging.

The resultant immersive exhibitions, an online hub, and in-depth video documentation will be developed with a diverse group of experts and stakeholders ensuring a well-rounded and impactful approach.

How we approach this also matters a great deal.

How we approach complex systems is key to thinking through how to build a truly intersectional response to climate change.

So there is a need to also be able to grasp something of the complexity in a way that bears witness to the injustices that riddle through colonial power, to more recent forms of extraction in the form of neoliberalism.

How do we bear witness to the multiple origin stories of the Lough for instance, or the complexity of the history of Northern Ireland, both recently and historically?

There has been a very positive uptake of what is a radical new artistic approach to climate activism, that has already shifted perspectives of the respective organisations we have been working with.

The text that weaves throughout all of the works, and informs everything we do, is a collective endeavour, like sediment coming to rest, briefly, informed by disturbances that set all the nutrients swirling again. Here, there is an emphasis and interest in acknowledging and thinking through the complexities of the subject emerging in synthesis with their environment, from a critical intersectional position. What that means is there is an emphasis on grasping something of the complexity of the multi-temporalities and scales, cross-species contaminations and alliances, necessary to confront the environmental challenges ahead - within an evolving awareness of power relations, which necessarily take into account colonial histories as well as neocolonial extractions of value.

contributors:

James Orr (Friends of the Earth)
Ruby Inge Free (environmentalist and member of Surfers Against Sewage)
Dr Thomas L Muinzer (Queen's University Belfast. Author of UK’s Climate Change Act: Climate and Energy Governance for the UK Low Carbon Transition: The Climate Change Act 2008 (Palgrave: UK, 2018).
Save Our Shores,
Love Our Lough,
Surfers Against Sewage,
Collette Stewart (Friends of the Earth)
Deborah McLaughlin (Friends of the Earth)
Declan Allison (Friends of the Earth)
Jane Morrow (PS2)
Simon Wood (Ravenhill Films)
Shauna Corr (Journalist)
Tommy Green (Journalist)
Catherine Devlin (Digital Arts Belfast)
Richard Davis (Digital Arts Belfast)
Les Gornall (Dr Sludge, Co-Founder International Environment Forum Oct 1997 - Present, Consultant | D.Phil, BSc.(Hons),CBiol,FRSB)
Professor Mark Emmerson (School of Biological Sciences Queens University Belfast - Climate Plus)