Dear Planet
Online
10 November 2021 | From 11.30am
Overview
To mark COP26, the National Theatre of Scotland opened up its digital channels to amplify artistic voices calling for a more sustainable future. Dear Planet was a day of online activity where the company is handed over its digital channels and platforms to artivists and changemakers.
Following an open call submission process a programme of short videos from a host of international artists was shared.
The diverse Dear Planet programme offered short films from Scotland, Chile, England, Ireland, Arctic Norway, Japan and the Netherlands addressing, challenging and reflecting on climate change issues and the fragility of the world we live in using a variety of mediums including interview, text, song, spoken word, poetry, dance, performance and animation. The films also reflect on activism and the fight by communities to achieve climate justice.
Dear Planet Programme
The Sit Down (Scotland)
By Brass Aye and Tricky Hat
Lead artists:Tam Dean Burn, Richard Merchant, Kim Beveridge
A new song for COP26, raising awareness of climate crisis and where the power lies, made with children in the Children’s Wood community in Glasgow.
Marine (Scotland)
The Ayrshire coast is abundant with beautiful but fragile biodiversity. The Clyde has made some steps to recovery but it still lacks the full protection it needs. This film was created during the Summer once the restrictions of COVID had lifted but the danger had not retreated. Spending time by the coast was hugely healing and my eyes were opened to a delicate tender landscape of marine wildlife.
You May Lose Your Fingerprint (Scotland)
By Skye Loneragan and Adam Sébire
A collaborative film-poem exploring the cryosphere and climate change with the oncologist's phrase, 'you may lose your fingerprint'. Adam and Skye are experimenting with ways juxtaposition might help us hold the day-to-day with the epic and overwhelming reality of eco-emergency, and questioning we might need to change who we think we are in the face of loss and a mutli-species survival.
Tipping Point (Chile)
By Pau de Planet (aka Paula Tassara)
Cultura Planetaria
An urgent fusion of cumbia Latin American beats, classical and indie pop sounds from Northern latitudes. The song was recorded live as an artivist collaboration using footage from Chile´s current social, democratic, transformational process, and the international climate movement.
Madre Cordillera (Chile)
By Pau de Planet (aka Paula Tassara)
Cultura Planetaria
An artivist song and dream written during lockdown in the form of a cueca (Chile´s traditional national dance). Created for Chile's Independence Day, it was recorded and filmed as an artistic collaboration in a water catchment area in the foothills of the Andes, in Santiago.
Weeds (Ireland)
A short engaging spoken word poem which transports the audience from frustration and helplessness to hope and determination.
The End of the World Show (Scotland)
By Bridie Gane
A spoof 1970's TV show that completely disregards the warning signs and sees us through right to the end... This short dance film explores unease around the future, playing with our familiar, ridiculous skills of procrastination and denial as the climate deadlines loom
Future Calling (Scotland)
By Eco Drama
Lead artists: Emily Reid, Ben Mali Macfadyen
Young people’s visionary future messages as part of a digital project with S1 pupils from Boclair Academy addressing responses to the climate emergency through online discussion, visioning exercises, games and nature activities. The project creatively reconfigures climate change as a symptom of bigger issues around the way we relate to each other and the natural world.
The project was supported by Education Scotland’s Creative Curriculum Fund and the Glasgow Centre for Population Health.
The Mothership Earth Song (England)
Written by Keith Bartlett and Paddy Cunneen and produced by Graeme Taylor.
Artists from all over the world have been uniting in singing the climate change song, The Mothership Earth Song. The song has been translated and sung in 17 different languages and it highlights the urgency of the issue for the planet.
Greta (Scotland)
Written to be released on the climate activist’s 18th birthday. An animated tongue in cheek overview celebrating Greta’s achievements.
AnthropoScene1: Breakdown (Arctic Norway)
By Adam Sébire
The traffic just seems to be getting worse by the day at Iceland's iceberg lagoon, Jökulsárlón... Australian video artist Adam Sébire brings wry humour to global warming’s visible effects at one of the fastest-retreating glaciers, Breiðamerkurjökull, in Iceland's Vatnajökull National Park: its procession of beautiful ice forms is here reimagined as a traffic jam of cinematic proportions.
In a New Light (Scotland, Singapore, Bangladesh)
By Imaginate, Gidree Bawlee and The Artground
Lead Artist (Scotland) and film director: Gudrun Soley Sigurdardottir Lead Artist (Singapore): Renee Chua
Lead Artist (Bangladesh): Kamruzzaman Shadhin
In A New Light was an international online performance project, a collaboration between artists and children in Scotland, Bangladesh and Singapore. Young people from each country worked together with three artists to explore the collective voice of children and young people in relation to the current ecological crisis. Connecting children and artists across borders was key: celebrating diverse stories, cultures and experiences through contemporary performance.
In a New Light was originally developed as part of the Singapore International Foundation’s Arts for Good Project in partnership with Imaginate. This programme was a partnership between The Artground (Singapore), Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts (Bangladesh) and Imaginate (Scotland).
Somos Todes 'We Are All' (Scotland)
By Penny Stone
A short solidarity film made by activists and musicians in Chile, Scotland, the USA, Canada, Colombia, Wales, Australia, England and Spain including songs, interviews with activists in Putaendo and images from around the world.
Treading Water (UK)
Harbour Collective
Research film in progress made in response to Harbour Collective’s online residency focusing on climate change, including the physicality of landscapes, the passage of time and commensurate emotional impacts, through the study of places and historical archives. Sound recorded in 2019 from bothy steps descending into the sea, Scalloway, Shetland.
Traces of the Past (Netherlands)
By Robin de Vries
Harbour Collective
Research film in progress made in response to Harbour Collective’s online residency focusing on climate change, including the physicality of landscapes, the passage of time and commensurate emotional impacts, through the study of places and historical archives. Sound recorded in 2019 of the interior contents of a dredging pipe in the North Sea, on its way to being offloaded on the Dutch coastal site of Scheveningen.
Timelapse (Scotland & Japan)
By Gillian Adair McFarland and Tatsushi Takizawa for Confluence of North
A collaboration between two artists one in Scotland the other in Japan, neither of whom have met and neither of whom speak each other's language.
Climate Justice According to a Kid (Scotland)
By Lida Vincent Agarwal (aged 14)
Playful animation created for Climate Ready Schools looking at the evolution and effects of climate change and what young people can do about climate justice.
Cruises (England)
By Timberlina
Featuring Dr Aspalls on piano, words and music by Tim Redfern, piano arrangements by Phil Law
Original, refined piano cabaret number from the world’s number 1 ecologically friendly bearded drag lady
How The Earth Must See Itself (Scotland)
By Lucy Cash and Simone Kenyon
Produced by National Theatre of Scotland and Scottish Sculpture Workshop
An evocative and atmospheric homage to Scotland’s Cairngorm Mountains, How the Earth Must See Itself is a short film based on Aberdeen writer Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain, and artist Simone Kenyon’s Into The Mountain project.
Poets for the Planet
Ecopoems inspired by conversations between poets and scientists from Imperial College London's Grantham Institute and beyond. Poets for the Planet is a community of kindred poets, performers, artists and creative activists raising their voices to engage with climate and ecological emergency through poetry in all its forms.
Heat (England)
Let’s Go Back to Nature(South Africa)
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