“Climate Change and the Arts: A Post-Cop26 Roundtable Discussion” 

On behalf of Future Earth Ireland, you are invited to attend a national webinar, “Climate Change and the Arts: A Post-Cop26 Roundtable Discussion”, from 4-5.30pm (IST), Wednesday 24th November 2021. This event is co-hosted by Future Earth Ireland, based at the Royal Irish Academy, and the Moore Institute for the Humanities and Social Studies at NUI Galway. 

Watch here: https://youtu.be/T6AJP2kDxzw

Much of the discourse surrounding the recent Cop26 meeting in Glasgow has been led by the political and scientific communities and has been focused on progressing international agreements and multilateral policies in order to address the planetary urgency of the climate and biodiversity crises. However, if cultural vitality (in its broadest sense) is recognised as the fourth pillar of sustainability then any policy initiatives in relation to environmental change that fail to take into account the importance of the social-cultural realm will possibly only have very limited success in the future.  

This webinar seeks to address this important gap in policy and public discourse in relation to the role that the arts (and culture more widely) can play in addressing these environmental and planetary challenges, in Ireland and globally today.  In particular, the webinar will foreground the role of arts practitioners and those directly working the area of Arts and Humanities in this discussion and so we are delighted to have a wide range of artists, writers, scholars, practitioners, curators, and those involved in sustainability policy participating in our panel discussion.  

Image credits: Drowned Galway (2020). Photomontages by Joe Lee. Project directed by Ríonach Ní Néill. Commissioned for Galway 2020, European Capital of Culture. 

Guest contributors to the session include: 

1. Deirdre O’Mahony (Artist - Socially-engaged arts practice)  

2. Siobhán McDonald (Artist - Visual Arts)   

3. Nessa O’Mahony (Artist – Literature, Editor) 

4. Alice Kinsella (Artist – Literature, Editor)  

5. Ríonach Ní Néill (Artist - Contemporary Dance, Curator)   

6. Helen O’Donoghue (Senior Curator, Head of Engagement and Learning, IMMA, Dublin)  

7. EL Putnam (Digital Artist and Scholar, School of English and Creative Arts, NUI Galway) 

8. Charles Joly (Head of Sustainability, London School of Economics, UK)    

9. Derek Gladwin (Irish Studies; Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver) 

10. Richard Kearney (Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy, Boston College, USA)  

11. Conor Newman (Climate Heritage, School of Geography, Archaeology and Irish Studies, NUI Galway) 

12. Dan Carey  (Director, Moore Institute, NUI Galway ) 

13. Nessa Cronin (FEI Committee, Associate Director, Moore Institute, NUI Galway) 

14. Diarmuid Torney (FEI Chair, School of Law and Government, DCU) 

15. Patrick Lonergan (FEI Committee, School of English and Creative Arts, NUI Galway)