At the beginning of this week Ella and I attended a fantastic debate at the RSA entitled Chico Mendes Legacy: The role of the arts in environmental activism.
This session used the amazing story of the political activist Chinco Mendes to talk about the issues of climate change and the role arts play in environmental activism today.
The debate was chaired by Paul Heritage who is the Director of the Young Vic. Chinco Mendes’s daughter Elenira Mendes was present and was able to tell the story of her father using Paul Heritage as a translator. It was amazing to see Elenira’s passion and dedication to her father’s legacy even through the barrier of language. Other panelists included the composer Jonathan Dove, Greenpeace’s senior climate advisor Charlie Kronick, and the wonderful and mad fashion designer and activist Dame Vivienne Westwood.
It was an interesting debate looking at how far art can help shift society’s attitudes in the face of unprecedented climate change. But the audience was left still looking for actions to take away in order to alter the ending of this “slow motion disaster movie”.
You can download a link to see the session in full here.
Jan 27th, Ella said:
It was an interesting talk, and I heart Vivienne, but we need to be thinking practically and optimistically about these issues. Surely we are all responsible for the authorship of this “disaster movie”, it hasn’t finished yet…