Art and creativity have been central to social movements throughout all of history—and combating the climate crisis is no different. During “The Performing Arts Lights the Way: A Climate Week Celebration,” performers of all genres—singers, multi-instrumentalists, spoken word poets, theater and movement artists, drag queens, sculptors, printmakers, chefs—demonstrated the transformative power of the arts.
The event, during Food Tank’s Climate Week NYC series of Summits, was hosted in partnership with the McKnight Foundation and the Broadway Green Alliance.
“More than anything, we have to show up in these times leading with culture, leading with care, and leading with collective action. And we believe the arts and culture bearers are vital in playing this role,” said Tonya Allen, President of the McKnight Foundation, an organization that focuses on environmental and social justice through the arts.
Take drag queen Pattie Gonia, for example. She has built a following by bridging environmental activism with drag performance and queer organizing. As we mourn what has gone wrong and act to make the world better, she told the sold-out crowd before launching into a lip-sync performance and dance number, we also need to put joy at the center of our advocacy.
“We need that storytelling; we need unconventional solutions,” she said. “I’m a big believer that different social justice and climate movements have different things to teach other ones, like ecosystems in nature.”
“The environment has always been the deepest teacher for me with music,” singer-songwriter Amber Rubarth said.
This was a lesson that visual artist Ricardo Levins Morales learned young, he said.
“My narrative began on a mountaintop in western Puerto Rico,” he said. “One of the things I carry is what I learned from the soil, about the interrelatedness of things. An open-ended cycle of complexity.”
And food and agriculture are powerful tools not only to build better soils and ecosystems but joyous interpersonal connection, too. At his Minneapolis restaurant Owamni, chef Sean Sherman is reshaping the connections between food service, local ingredients, and cultural history.
“I wanted to know, what were my ancestors eating, and why did we lose this knowledge? And why did I grow up on a reservation without that knowledge?” said Sherman, who is also the Founder of The Sioux Chef and the organization Native American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NATIFS) and is the author of an upcoming cookbook.
“What are the Indigenous foods of where we might be? In places like New York City, you can find food from all over the world—other than the land you’re standing on.”
Farming is a powerful bridge between ancestral knowledge and nourishing food, regenerative farmer Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin said onstage. Frogtown Farms, in St. Paul, Minnesota, was co-founded by public artist Seitu Ken Jones to carry out this mission.
“This is a farm created and designed by artists. Ain’t no straight rows,” Jones said. “And that wasn’t just that we were being creative—we were calling up ancient and traditional systems to make sure water is infiltrated into the soil.”
And going forward, creativity and imagination have to remain central to advocacy, presenters said.
“We have to face some of the facts, some of the hurdles, and have outrageous hope,” said award-winning actress Alysia Reiner. “That’s one of the magical things that art can do. It allows us to dream a little bit. It allows us to believe we are all one, that anything is possible.”
Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.
Photo by Ryan Rose for Food Tank.
