Artists’ use stories, experience and images to communicate the immediacy of their ethics for climate justice. Artists can also respond to the climate crisis by applying these same ethics to their daily practice.
Image: Henry Wolff
She/her
Sally Craven is an artist living on unceded Kaurna land in Adelaide, South Australia, working across the mediums of sculpture and installation. Sally’s practice draws upon her cross-disciplinary background as an artist and landscape architect, exploring the poetic expression of the Australian landscape and contemporary culture.
She has exhibited at Pari Ari, Seventh Gallery, Cement Fondu, Live Dreams / Performance Space Liveworks Festival, FELTspace, Testing Grounds and Borderlands, Dark MOFO; is currently a sessional lecturer in Master of Landscape Architecture courses; and an outgoing co-director at FELTspace artist-run gallery.
Instagram: @sally_craven__
Carly Tarkari Dodd wears Sapphire and Diamond Earrings, Sapphire and Pearl Necklace and Sapphire and Diamond Engagement Ring; Raffia, blue and silver ribbon; 2022. Image: Brooke Bowering
She/her
Carly Tarkari Dodd is a Kaurna\Narungga and Ngarrindjeri artist and curator based in Tarntanya (Adelaide). Within her artistic practice Carly mixes traditional and contemporary techniques, to produce works that are conceptually and culturally driven.
Working at JamFactory as the First Nations Engagement Coordinator and Assistant Curator she has worked closely with First Nations artists and art centres on many projects. Highlighting and amplifying Indigenous voices and culture is a strong passion in her curation practice.
Instagram: @tarkari.art
Image: supplied by artist
She/her
Annika Romeyn is fortunate to live and work on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country in Kamberri/Canberra. Inspired by the natural environment of the broader region, she combines watercolour, drawing and printmaking processes to create intricate and immersive works on paper. Through large-scale watercolour monotype prints, Annika seeks to convey the humbling and restorative experience of walking in nature, with a focus on the threshold of rock and water.
Annika has been a finalist in the Ellen José Art Award (2022), winner of the Burnie Print Prize (2021), winner of the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award (2020) and winner of the National Works on Paper prize (2020). Her work is represented by Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne.
Website: annika-romeyn.com
Instagram: @annika_lucy
The arts continue to play an important role in responding to and creating community awareness of the climate crisis. As the climate crisis becomes more visible, many artists are aligning their art practice to their political and ethical values. For individual artists making work in this area - stories, images and experiences can be a powerful way to educate and connect with their audience and illuminate the relationship between climate crisis and issues of social inequality.
In 2017, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) published the Declaration of Ethical Principles in relation to Climate Change, recognising that ‘climate change is a common concern for all humankind’ and ‘that the global and local challenges of climate change cannot be met without the participation of all people at all levels of society’.
The Code of Practice provides a list of ways that the arts embody action and response to the climate crisis. These include action and response to collective issues like arts organisation’s reliance on funding from the fossil fuel and extractive industries and the ‘artwashing’ of these companies.
Individual artists can also take practical actions towards a climate-conscious daily art practice. These can include changes to the way use energy, select materials, deal with waste and interact with organisations and services.
A great place to begin making changes is at the beginning of developing a new project.
A climate-conscious art practice may:
Read more about artists’ ethics and environmental responsibility in the Code of Practice.
Discover more about arts and the climate crisis in the following Code of Practice chapters:
Find more NAVA resources about climate-conscious art practices:
Like all organisations within the arts ecology, schools can support climate justice by assessing their sphere of influence and developing a Climate Justice Policy/Plan.
Create a manifesto poster outlining your climate ethics and how they inform your individual climate-conscious artistic practice.
As a class, or in groups, review examples of Climate Justice Policies and Plans from arts organisations before using the NAVA’s Code of Practice and the Gallery Climate Coalition’s Decarbonisation action plan: For non-profits and institutions resource to guide the creation of a collective class plan to reduce waste and emissions within your art classroom.
Examples of Climate Justice Policies and Plans:
Art is a Real Job was a national program throughout March 2023 that invited artists to share how good industry practice helped shape their careers and navigate the art world with confidence. The program dissected and championed NAVA’s new Code of Practice via four artist-led online events, including workshops, studio tours and panel conversations for secondary school student artists, educators and pre-service educators.
Artists Thomas Readett, April Phillips, Tim Meakins
Host Alise Hardy | Support Emma Pham
Hero image artwork Emma Pham
Program Manager Alise Hardy
Artists Annika Romeyn, Carly Tarkari Dodd, Sally Craven
Host Alise Hardy | Support Emma Pham
Hero image artwork Emma Pham
Program Manager Alise Hardy
Artists Sam Gold, Nikki Lam, Lisa Sammut
Hosts Penelope Benton, Emma Pham | Support Alise Hardy
Hero image artwork Emma Pham
Program Manager Alise Hardy
Artists Kay Abude, Rachel Burke, Ryan Presley
Hosts Emma Pham, Georgie Cyrillo
Hero image artwork Emma Pham
Program Manager Alise Hardy
Resource written by Alise Hardy.
First published in June 2023 by National Association for the Visual Arts as part of the Art is a Real Job.
Art is a Real Job is supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.
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