INTERVIEWS

THE ART OF ACTIVISM

Giving a presentation at CIWEM's annual conference, artist and activist, John Jordan, challenged delegates' preconceptions and generated heated debate about everything from the privatised water industry through to sponsorship and the impact of REDD on indigenous populations.  Erika Yarrow caught up with him to discuss the impact that art can have on the environmental movement, what the creative arts can bring to activism and the BP/Tate debate.

CIWEM'S Arts and Environment Network has a mission to but creativity into the heart of environmental decision making, but amongst both the art and environmental communities there are a myriad of interpretations as to how this relationship may best be developed and what qualities each discipline can bring to the table.  Intrigued by the flux of this relationship and the debate that encompasses it I ask John Jordan for his take on what the arts can bring to the environmental sector.  'I think what art can do is expand the envelope of imagination and give us courage to explore the impossible, which isn't encouraged in our culture,' says Jordan.  'In our present eco crisis this is necessary, as the present way of thinking isn't going to get us out of this.  Art can bring feeling into our approaches.  We live in a world where the logical left part of the brain has become dominant and we need art to help us address this.  Neuroscience has shown that when people think about profit they don't use the part of their brain associated with feeling.  Art can bring that feeling back.'

When it comes to environmental activism, John Jordan has celebrated in bringing creativity and performance to the arena.  He explains why.  'Activism is often seen as worthy, about sacrifice, about the opposite of things that are great, pleasurable, beautiful and desirable.  I am interested in artists becoming truly engaged in social movements, creating new forms of activism can make it beautiful and desirable again.  Capitalism has worked out well that people are driven by pleasure.  Activism should be an adventure.  Back in the 1990s environmental movements were focused on reclaiming the streets, against the car as a privatisation of public space, an eco disaster that was disrupting social activity.  The street should be a place where people can debate, dance, play.  We created parties in the streets, put down sand for children to play in, created puppets with vast skirts beneath which people dug up the asphalt.'

He continues: 'Now with the Climate Camps the motto is "There is no crew". As an artist I am interested in giving up the cultural stereotype of the singular, genius artist and believe artists need to be willing to give up control of everything and allow events to flow.  A Climate Camp provides a model of people living without leaders.  I see the Climate Camps as a great work of theatre - you have the secrecy around the venue, people trying to get there, hiding in strange locations, the marquees going up, and people coming together and engaging in direct action.  Art is great at imagining a future that hasn't arrived.  The Climate Camps give people a taste of living without leaders and  a chance to experience low carbon living.'

I ask Jordan how we can begin to address climate change in the complex environment of global politics and vested interests.  He answers: 'I think the ecological crisis has as much to do with the unequal distribution of power and wealth as it has to do with emissions and we need to begin to raise difficult questions.  We need to consider how for thousands of years land was managed collectively.  This idea that privatised, managed land is more efficient is crazy.  The management of a resource can't be about profit.  It doesn't work because you always have to make money for your shareholders.  We have an enormous amount to learn about how indigenous peoples manage resources.   How in this country commons were used and shared. It's about breaking it into bits so we all have a share of power, wealth and resources.  When things become stored in one place they become toxic.  Ecology is always moving.  Capitalism blocks the flow.'

Since the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster pressure has mounted on the Tate Gallery to dissolve its 20 year relationship with BP.  The debate has divided the art world, creating a split between those with an environmental sensibility from the hard hearted pragmatists who are willing the take the money from wherever it comes.  Jordan says: 'When people say where were the environmentalists 20 years ago when this relationship came about I say back then most of the people I work with now were too young to be involved and in those days many environmental activists in the UK were working on the road movement, with the government at the time planning to destroy vast expanses of land for roads. Twenty years ago climate change wasn't the issue it is now.'

On the success of the campaign against the Tate's sponsorship he says: 'Activism is like acupuncture, you have to hit the right spot to exactly the right degree.  Most of London's art institutions have relationships with dirty industries.  When the Tate tried to censor my work, telling me that I couldn't say anything against the Tate or its sponsors, it led students at my workshop to become radicalised.  But for me the real issue is that this is not BP supporting the Tate, but the Tate supporting BP.  The figure BP provides is pretty low, though it is difficult to find out the exact numbers.  But it's really not a large amount of money for BP and its peanuts for the Tate.  What it is about is the oil companies needing a social license to operate - the need for them to be seen as cool, progressive - it's a magic trick created so we don't look at their ecological crimes, locally in cases such as the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and globally in the case of climate change.  It is not about the money.  It is interesting that Greenpeace has offered to find the money for the sponsorship from elsewhere but it hasn't been accepted. As for the artists that are willing to take money from these sources, all I can say is that I am interested in the ancient idea of art being there to support life and to engage socially, if this is the case why would artists be willing to take money from oil companies?' 

He concludes: 'Our grandchildren will look back at oil companies like we look back at the slave trade.  We know about climate change and yet we are still celebrating oil companies in our greatest cultural institutions.  I hold on to the belief that art can have a positive influence and show us alternatives by making the future in the present.'