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Tune in to three webinars about the arts and sustainability

Stories
Jun 01, 2023
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Image: Zadie Xa performing at Julie’s Bicycle’s 2020 We Make Tomorrow summit. Photo by James Allan

We are facing an environmental crisis that demands a huge shift and change in systems and thinking. We need to move quickly, and we need to move together, making sure no one is left behind. Fostering collaboration and a collective approach to shared challenges will be key to this transition.

Our Creative Climate Leadership Program empowers artists and cultural professionals to take action on the climate and ecological crisis with impact, creativity, and resilience. It was designed to mobilise and connect a creative climate movement, in collaboration with pioneering creative industries’ climate justice non-profit Julie’s Bicycle.

Artists and arts professionals can apply for the transformative five day leadership program at Bundanon before Tuesday 6 June, and you can also register for three free webinars on what the arts, artists and our industry can do for sustainability and the future of the environment.

Watch the recordings, or register for our upcoming webinars, below.

Webinar 1: What are the arts doing for sustainability? A new story of climate hope and collective action

Join us for a conversation about the power and importance of storytelling, climate action, and our chance to be agents of change.

Panellists:

  • Claire O’Rourke, an author, environmentalist and advocate, with two decades working in journalism, communications and campaigns across Australia and around the world. Claire helps others take action on climate change, currently as Australia Program Director at The Sunrise Project. Claire’s first book, Together We Can, was published by Allen & Unwin in 2022.
  • Andy Packer, an award-winning director of theatre, music theatre and opera, who has also worked as creative producer of multidisciplinary arts programs, creative director of large-scale events and festival director.
  • Australian actor Yael Stone, best known for playing Lorna Morello in seven seasons of the multiple-award-winning Netflix series, Orange Is the New Black. In January 2020 at the height of the Australian bushfires, Yael announced that she would be abandoning her US Green Card, returning home to Australia as a symbol of her commitment to reducing CO2 emissions. Since then Yael founded Hi Neighbour, an organisation that uses solar projects to fund scholarships for local workers training for Technical Low Carbon jobs. She’s currently studying Sustainable Communities at University of Wollongong.
  • Contemporary artist Cedric Varcoe, who paints the creation stories of his Ngarrindjeri lands and waters. He has worked extensively across community arts projects in regional South Australia.

Watch it now

Webinar 2: What can individuals and organisations do now? Rewiring the Arts and fuelling the energy revolution.

Join us for a discussion highlighting practical, on-the-ground action people can take in their organisations, arts and touring practices.

Panellists:

  • Heidi Lenffer: an artist with the band Cloud Control and the founder of FEAT. Live – a climate action movement for the live entertainment industry to accelerate Australia’s roadmap to 100% renewable energy. Since 2019, FEAT. has raised $7 million from a community of high-profile artists including Vance Joy, Regurgitator and Julia Stone and overseen the complete construction of Brigalow Solar Farm in rural Queensland. FEAT. has won industry recognition with Heidi being the recipient of both the 2019 Triple J ‘You Done Good’ award and the 2019 SMAC of the YEAR. Heidi’s focus for 2022 is rolling out a 1.5% sustainability surcharge – the ‘Solar Slice’ – across the ticketed events of Australia’s largest festivals and tours to fund carbon reduction measures.
  • Matt Seery: Associate Creative Director of one of Australia’s leading visual theatre companies, Dead Puppet Society.
  • Violette Snow, Senior Campaigner – Climate Solutions, Greenpeace: Violette is a senior climate campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, and works to shift major companies to commit to 100% renewable electricity and getting off oil and gas. She is passionate about building impactful campaigns that protect people and planet while cultivating a future that thrives on creativity, community and shared purpose.

Watch it now

Webinar 3: How to plan to be more sustainable. Funding a safe climate future: Sponsorship and funding in the arts.

Join us for a discussion of collective challenges and how to pave a path forward together as an industry.

Highlighting the organisational power in shifting energy and financed emissions to set a precedent for climate action within the arts, and the increased cross-organisational collaborations and funds to create climate-responsive research and creative development.

Panellists:

Watch it now