Climate Resilience Toolkit: Arts-based activities for changing climates
This pioneering resource is born out of extensive research and collaborative efforts involving artists, educators, and climate scientists from Sydney, Australia, and Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, with assistance from researchers at the University of Bristol, UK, and Lund University, Sweden. It is designed to bridge the gap between the abstract world of scientific data and the tangible realities of individual and community lives, utilising the transformative power of art to foster a deeper, more empathetic understanding of the climate crisis as well as adaptation, mitigation, and transformation efforts.
This toolkit represents a new way to approach climate change communication and climate adaptation by allowing people to think about and imagine climate resilience, climate justice, and adaptation using different medium. These tools are just the start of the team’s efforts to leverage the universal language of art to open up new avenues for understanding, engaging with and enacting climate justice, resilience and adaptation. The tools are designed to be used and adapted to fit local contexts and different communities.
The toolkit is structured around a series of activities, each designed to engage people with different concepts and actions linked to climate change adaptation in ways that emphasise hope, empowerment, and collective action. Here are some of the activities included:
- Adaptation Paths: A Climate Change Journey: This group art project encourages participants to visualise their journey of climate adaptation, from awareness to action.
- United We Stand: Clay Figurines of Community Resilience: An activity that uses clay figurines to represent the roles individuals play in building climate-resilient communities.
- Theatre of the Resilient: Inspired by the Theatre of the Oppressed, this activity explores power dynamics and climate resilience through interactive theatre and employing AI technologies to generate scripts.