It’s nine years ago this month since German biologist and eco-philosopher Andreas Weber spoke in Dublin about how it was time to embrace a mind/body connection with the natural world in all its fragility and strength.
This mutual relationship with birds, animals, flowers and even stones he defined as “enlivenment”, as he spoke about his encounters with nightingale song and honeysuckle blossoms on a quiet street in a downtrodden part of his native city of Berlin.
I was emboldened by the same need to interact with nature – and the human creative connection to it – when I went to the Glencree Valley in Co Wicklow one evening in early July to see the gorse-thatched structure that artist Shane Finan had built in a field opposite Knockree Hostel.
It wasn’t the first time Finan had explored these prickly uplands plants with their yellow coconut-scented flowers. But I could see how they had mesmerised him into creating a temporary pavilion looking right across the valley to the Big Sugarloaf mountain.
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With the artwork Furze: Fuel, Fodder, Thatch, Tools and Toys, Finan invited the public to interact with and consider the heritage and folk traditions of gorse (also known as furze, wins, and aitlean in Irish) which was used for fencing, fuel and as a material for thatching in times past. Visitors also had opportunities to draw with charcoal he made from semi-burnt furze branches in this quiet rural spot.
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Artists are often shape-shifters of cultural norms and belief systems, as by viewing society through an outsider lenses, they are not afraid to push against the status quo and stimulate behaviour change.
This is why artists are often called upon at times when societies are in need of a paradigm shift. Our need to understand and reverse human-induced climate change is such a strong inflexion point in our history that we need all the creative help we can get.
Artist and project director on creative climate action projects Suzie Cahn says that artists can show people things from different perspectives and break down silos. “Artists are a new type of broker between state agencies and communities because they have no agenda or judgment. They are open, passionate and curious. They can create awe by creating deep connection,” says Cahn, whose most recent role was with Shifting Tides, a cross-Border creative arts and ecology project on Carlingford Lough.
Earlier this week, the Government announced the projects that were successful in the Creative Climate Action Fund III (2026-2029). Eleven creative, cultural and artistic projects – including two cross-Border projects – were funded to a maximum of €750,000 over four years in what was described as the largest single investment under the initiative to date.
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The funded projects include eco-arts project Dinnseanchas from the Clare-based nature restoration charity; Hometree, a bog stewardship scheme in the Sliabh Beagh peatlands of Monaghan, Fermanagh and Tyrone led by An Taisce, and a food facilitators’ programme reimagining local food systems led by the Mary Robinson Centre in Ballina, Co Mayo.
These projects were chosen from more than 100 applications, which shows how strong the appetite among creatives is to engage with the public on climate change. Inevitably, there were many disappointed applicants whose projects did not receive funding.
A paradigm shift requires a whole-of-society transformation of behaviours and attitudes to solve the triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution
Theo Dillon, project development officer with the Environmental Forum NGO, suggests the Government should have allocated more money than the €7.6 million that was available for this third round of Creative Climate Action.
“Creative climate solutions should be encouraged and invested in, not pitted against each other competitively, at massive time cost to the unsuccessful NGOs, charities and volunteers across the country [who don’t get any feedback on applications they spend months putting together],” says Dillon.
There are of course other – albeit smaller – funding schemes which artists can also apply to, such as local authority and regional arts centre climate action funds (for example, Finan’s furze project was funded by the Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray, Co Wicklow). Artists and festival directors widely acknowledge that jumping through the hoops of funding applications can be a soul-destroying, emotionally draining exercise that only the hardiest can endure.
Many smaller art and nature projects also struggle financially from year to year to fund events which resonate strongly with audiences and participants alike.
Artists are embedded in environmental initiatives throughout Ireland on everything from peatland restoration to combating pollution in our inland and coastal waterways, to promoting sustainable food production. Their work in communities is valuable, but should they also use their practice to directly highlight other issues that impact the natural environment, such as illegal dumping and runoff from intensive agriculture and forestry?
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A paradigm shift requires a whole-of-society transformation of behaviours and attitudes to solve the triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
“Our whole reality is based on feelings and participating with others,” Andreas Weber said at the Green Foundation event in Trinity College Dublin in July 2017.
He also said that it is only when science, politics and economics put the living world at the “heart” of policy will transformational change happen at scale. So we need everyone on board to keep up the momentum required to embrace the nature-based and technological solutions we now have to reduce emissions and pollution and reverse biodiversity loss.
