Artivism For a Sustainable Future: Meet Climate Artists & Get Yourself Creative
Introducing the global Parachute for the Planet project & Climate Poetry
The Parachutes for the Planet initiative is a collaborative arts project, initiated by the Mother Earth Project, including the Rubenstein family and in collaboration with the family of Kallan Benson, a young US FFF activist. The Mother Earth Project was founded in 2015 by US public artist and environmentalist Barton Rubenstein and his family.
Parachutes are a metaphor for bringing the planet back to a safe place, a sustainable world that is vital to our health, safety and future. Schools and local groups around the world are painting play parachutes (non-functional) with colorful artwork and collective commitments to sustainable actions and the SDGs. Decorating parachutes is a powerful activity of sharing and learning and it strengthens a community’s focus on taking action, demanding climate action and better environmental laws.
There are currently nearly 4000 of these parachutes in 80 countries. We will encourage the global MEP community to put them into action locally in their communities and participate in the Global Action Day on June 1 to end the fossil fuel era and join the worldwide growing call for an international Fossil-Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In Stockholm, we also want to display a set of 16 parachutes with the wording PEOPLE OVER PROFIT, in a public space at the manifestation on June 1. Sergals Torg seems like a great location to hang the parachutes for the world to see. These parachutes were painted by a coalition of more than 20 groups in Tacoma, WA, led by the local 350.org chapter.
https://www.350tacoma.org/2020/12/10/tacoma-climate-solidarity-event/
In the workshop, we will introduce the project and show other parachute examples, and explore with participants if we can heal the world with arts and poetry and share other global climate artivism and craftivism initiatives.
“Healing the world with poetry” is the title of the last poem of a climate poetry series called “And the left us a broken Planet”, that was launched by a Dutch climate researcher in the lead up to the COP26 in Glasgow. We will invite the scientist to join us virtually and tell us about his motivation to write climate poetry. https://andtheyleftusabrokenplanet.com
Afterwards, workshop participants can either write their own climate haikus and/or paint together a parachute and mingle with ...
Sandra Prüfer (MEP EU volunteer director, P4F Germany, freelance journalist)
Kole Odutola (Nigerian poet & media for development expert)
Leanne Brummell (P4F Australia, Knitting Nannas)
Precious Kalombwana (Mother Earth Project Director for Zambia)
Junior Saint Fleur (Mother Earth Project Director for Haiti)
Tanvi Mishra (Youth Climate Activist)
and others