We Hear You at COP27 Photos/Credit: Craig Gibson, The New York Times
Excerpt of Ocean Optimism by Ashanee Kottage as part of We Hear You – A Climate Archive at COP27
We Hear You—A Climate Archive is a collaboration project with Dramaten (The Royal Dramatic Theatre of Sweden), The Earth Commons—Georgetown University’s Institute for Environment and Sustainability and The Embassy of Sweden in Washington, DC We Hear You—A Climate Archive is co-conceived by Caitlin Nasema Cassidy and Jacob Hirdwall. Additional support for this project is provided by the Swedish Arts Council and Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation.
Inspired by Greta Thunberg’s urgent question “Can you hear me?, ” this project seeks to amplify—and record for future generations—the ways that today’s young people are experiencing changes in the fundamental forces of the earth. We Hear You—A Climate Archive includes a two-year series of curated international performances and the launch of a digital platform for global climate storytelling.
We Hear You—A Climate Archive‘s official website is now live
at
aclimatearchive.com
The performance series officially launched with an evening of climate storytelling on Friday, March 18, 2022 at the COAL + ICE exhibition presented by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Asia Society. An ensemble of DC-area youth artists and activists presented an original performance weaving their own experiences with the words of Greta Thunberg.
Following its launch in DC, We Hear You—A Climate Archive will commission 77 additional stories from young people around the world. These commissions will inform the launch of a digital platform for global climate storytelling, as well as a multi-year international curated performance series, culminating in a performance at Dramaten directed by Jacob Hirdwall.
We Hear You—A Climate Archive opened the United Nations Stockholm+50 June 1 plenary at Stockholm University. The performance featured Razmus Nyström and Melinda Kinnaman from The Royal Dramatic Theatre of Sweden with text by Greta Thunberg, Lilli Hokama, and Jacob Hirdwall and direction by Jacob Hirdwall.
“We need stories about what we love and stand to lose,” says Cassidy. “In this time of global crises, I know I need stories that deliver joy, that offer me ways to root in wisdom and move forward in hope. We Hear You—A Climate Archive is asking: How can we hear the young folk—the artists and activists doing the work of imagining more liveable futures? What can we learn from them—from one another?
We Hear You—A Climate Archive grows from the performance We Hear You—Greta Thunbergs Tal, originally presented at Sweden’s Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm on January 31, 2020. Staged by Jacob Hirdwall and Ada Berger, this performance drew on the texts of Greta’s speeches collected in No One Is Too Small To Make a Difference (Penguin, 2019).
