Sylvia Grace Borda: Picturing Climate Change
As part of a British Council awarded Creative Climate change award, artist Sylvia Grace Borda has been exploring how can photography and climate create positive opportunities.
"Many of these ideas have spawned from ideas and projects written up in Shifting Perspectives," says Borda, referring to her art book published in 2020 by Heritage House.
"I.e. how to work with community in a meaningful and impactful way, how to consider the perspective of the non-human – flora and fauna, how to enrich biodiversity, and how to teach ourselves to be more mindful of Nature and the places we call home."
This work has accumulated into a large-scale community project, the outcomes of which will be discussed on March 21 as part of an online web forum symposium called Picturing Climate Change. The public is warmly invited to attend and learn about it.
The community project was co-created with artist, J.Keith Donnelly, and communities in Kofele, Ethiopia with Rural Organization for the Betterment of Agro-Pastoralists (ROBA) to the creation of the world's first earth observation. This endeavour has involved creating a small sustainable tree nursery and planting in order to create a series of living photo artworks.
Picturing Climate Change is an online free and public symposium that explores ‘what is seen and unseen’ in climate change from the viewpoints of the visual arts and photography to climate monitoring from earth to orbiting satellites. It has been programmed to coincide with the United Nations' International Day of Forests.
March 21, 2022 | 11 a.m. PST | open to the public | Details
Street Level Photoworks are pleased to host this event in collaboration with climate artists Sylvia Grace Borda (Canada) and J.Keith Donnelly (Scotland), along with contributions from the Rural Association of Betterment of Agro-pastorialists (Ethiopia) and in partnership with NASA’s Crew Earth Observation team (NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas).
The event will provide unique insights into some global climate arts and imaging projects across a series of presentations.
Borda and Donnelly will discuss the role of photography, land art, and community engagement in co-producing contemporary climate photoworks, including their project Internet of Nature for the City of Dundee, which is a virtual panorama of parks profiled from the ground perspective of small creatures, and their pioneering collaboration with the Oromo communities in Ethiopia co-creating photo-artworks that raise awareness of climate change from both the air and the ground.
