When my proposal for the Crumlin Climate Action Project was selected by Creative Ireland, I was excited to create work for my local area, but also a bit anxious as the climate crisis is such a huge topic and I wanted to make something meaningful. The project was a huge learning curve for me in terms of project management and community engagement and has definitely helped me grow as an artist. The project began with meeting the community, knocking door to door at Seagull House, this progressed to a climate workshop with local children. It was a challenge to create a workshop that was age appropriate and not too depressing for young children. I was hugely impacted by environmental projects when I was a child, they had a huge impact on the adult I became, I wanted to make this connection with kids in my community. After the workshop I took some images of the children to work from and digested all the insights the kids had into this massive topic. The kids spoke about our collective responsibility to the planet and to nature.
The mural design focuses on the burden we are putting on future generations by not tackling the climate crisis now. We are literally putting the weight of the world on their shoulders. I wanted it to be obvious that the mural was about the climate crisis just from the visuals. The classic pose of Atlas carrying the world on his back came to mind, so I brought a giant birthing ball with me to the climate workshop, Conan and Lucy were fantastic models and I took lots of reference photos to work from. I drew the kids in three tones on my drawing tablet and sent the files to my friend illustrator Holly Pereira. My brief to Holly was to add the earth showing clear impacts of the climate crisis. I was thinking fires, floods, draughts, Holly knew better and simplified all of that into the melting earth you see in the finished piece, it summed everything up in a simple clear and concise way. The puddle the kids stand on representing our waste of resources and resembling a pool of oil. The clothes the kids are wearing is actually just what they happened to wear that day, but I loved how Conan's army print could represent the future conflicts and wars fought over resources because of the climate crisis. Conan's expression is confronting, it looks defiantly at you, almost accusing you for not doing something to make the planet a better place for him & future generations. Lucy's leggings covered in leaves and plant patterns, represent the impact that the crisis will have on the natural world, Lucy talked about animals and nature in the workshop and how it was important for us to save them, Lucy's expression now more hopeful and represents a possible alternative future if we make big changes now. The words in the mural are an abbreviation of something Conan said during the workshop "we only have one planet and we only have one life". The style of the mural is reminiscent of comic books, with bold colours and smoke clouds, presenting the children as heroes of a future world where they take on the consequences of lives lived by previous generations. The colours used are green/blue teals and reds and oranges, representing the battle between nature and fire and destruction.
It is important to note that the fight for climate action starts locally, you can't expect someone to care about global issues if they have problems on their own door step. The housing and cost of living crisis that we are facing in Ireland not only impact us they also impact our climate negatively. Without energy efficient, warm and safe homes, the energy we overpay for literally flies out the window and we fire through more fossil fuels to replace it. A problem that many Crumlin families can not afford. I hope the mural provoked some action in the community, not just to make small changes themselves but to demand change from our government and our industries.
