Cultural Gardeners - Australian Cultural Alliance for Climate Action

INVITATION TO ARTISTS TO JOIN AN ACTION IN CANBERRA

International Day of the Artist

Canberra 25th October 2022

(also Budget Day)

International Day of the Artist

International Artists' Day commemorates the importance of art as a creative human expression and as a chronicler of human life, nature, and communities. 25 October marks the celebration of International Artists' Day around the globe to honour artists and their contribution to society.

Why?

We are taking this opportunity to advocate for the importance of artists in our systems, and continuing our call for intersectional policy making that aligns culture, climate and the Voice to Parliament (for more see below)

Draft schedule

Monday 24 October (time/place tbc)- gathering to share stories and key messages:

• the vital role of artistic skills, practice and processes in a just transition
• creating shared imagination for a sustainable future
• experts in values led equitable collaborative processes

Tuesday 25 October - still being developed that may include

• Early physical warm up on the lawns outside Parliament House
• Proposed meeting in Parliament House to advocate for the role of artists in transitioning our culture (see below)
  

• Artists meet their respective MP's
• Photographic opportunity with MP’s who support creative Climate Action & transition

This will appeal to you if:

• You are an independent artist
• You want to see greater action on Climate Change & practice this in your work
• You want to play a role in caring for culture and country as we transition to a fairer sustainable Australia
  

Interested?

• Everyone attends as practicing artists and concerned citizens
• We are raising money to pay for travel for First Nations artists and those who can’t afford to attend otherwise.

• Email: pippa.bailey101@gmail.com
• Contact your local MP and let them know about your creative climate action

Who are the Cultural Gardeners?

We are over 200 individuals and organisations from all states and territories, working in the cultural sector, deeply committed to taking action on the converging climate and ecological crises.

We believe that we need to look after our culture and country. Artists and the cultural sector must take a leading role in social transitions that mitigate further devastation and help us adapt to a warming climate. Together we can reimagine broken systems at a time when accelerated action is urgently needed.

We align to First Nations principles of Caring for Country and the Uluru Statement from the Heart. We align to a Just Transition, the framework developed by the trade union movement to encompass a range of social interventions needed to secure workers' rights and livelihoods when economies are shifting to sustainable modes that combat climate change, protect biodiversity and repair degraded ecosystems. These principles are outlined in the Paris Agreement and are also embedded in the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

See our Principles for action.

What we advocate for

We advocate for an intersectional and collaborative approach to creating policy; so that arts and culture can be integrated across many sectors. We acknowledge that this is new practice and requires creative approaches.

Importantly, we seek to align climate action with culture in ways that are fair, inclusive, future facing, responsive to community needs, and honour First Nations’ perspectives and a Voice to parliament.

A holistic and imaginative approach to transition - with a clear focus on arts and culture - could be aligned to the interconnected goals of reducing carbon emissions, eradicating pollution and waste, improving health and wellbeing, ensuring resilient communal housing, reimagining social services, place-making with nature at the centre, and involving communities more deeply in civic life. These are key policy areas where arts and culture have an important contribution to make, addressing converging crises and leading the systems change that many are calling for.

Let's elevate cultural discourse and advocate for artists and cultural workers to play a key role in co-designing plans for a future that serves all people and the ecosystems that all life depends on.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) the Climate Emergency is deepening at terrifying rates. Australia leads the world in mass extinction of species and increased incidents of extreme weather events. The global pandemic - a predicted symptom of climate disruption - has led to unprecedented global responses and continues to impact people’s lives all over the world. Culture has been radically disrupted.

The Australian Arts community has been detrimentally impacted by neglect, systematic defunding, lack of appropriate policy and general lack of care. Australia now needs a future facing cultural policy that leads with an interconnected systems approach, linking policy to practice that serves the wider community.

Investment in culture can rehearse new visions for the future, illustrate many perspectives, connect people to natural environments, shape narratives that are deeply embedded in place, host challenging public conversations between people with different ideas and values to enable greater understanding and stimulate new action. This will prioritise First Nations people and celebrate diverse cultures that include all Australians.

Simplistic, siloed approaches to inherently interconnected, systemic ‘wicked’ problems do not work. Systemic ‘wicked’ problems require creative solutions, as well as a cultural response, including respect for critique and analysis.

We call on governments to:

• Invest in Arts and cultural activities that provide place-based and virtual spaces where people connect with each other to reimagine, experiment, play and express. This includes opportunities for creative and cultural work that are integrated within all aspects of society: valuing all forms of culture.
• Ensure access to trustworthy public interest information and make room for other aspects of culture that are harder to articulate and define, and are critical to fostering and safeguarding a healthy democracy.

• Develop policy that acknowledges the tensions between:

1) tangible and intangible values, highly skilled specialists and wider community participants, commercial for-profit businesses and vital not-for-profit services that will always require investment;

2) national, bio-regional and local perspectives; and

3) real place/time and virtual experiences - all developed through diverse cultural lenses that reflect our broader society and will lead to better community outcomes.