Banksy to Peter Kennard, “I take my hat off to you sir”

The Center for Global Agenda thanks Peter Kennard, Professor of Political Art at the Royal College of Art, for submitting his photomontage and expert statement on the intersections of art and sustainable development.

Code Red Invite

New York, New York City, July 26, 2022 (PRLog) - The Center for Global Agenda (CGA) at Unbuilt Labs is leading the global stakeholder consultation for the Recommended UN Action Plan to Close the Compliance Gap, a publication at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). We would like to thank Peter Kennard for submitting his expert statement on Area 1: Cultural Diplomacy, Theme 2: Art and Design.

Marvin Cheung, Co-Director of CGA, also expresses his thanks, “The overarching goal of our research is to show the methods non-state actors can use to support sustainable development — we make a critical distinction between sustainability and sustainable development: whereas sustainability is often associated with climate issues, sustainable development has an important peace component. Thank you for bringing renewed attention to the role of the private sector, the military-industrial-complex, and the oil and gas industry in climate change through art.”

Below is Kennard’s statement:

“In August this year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released their report. Their findings, prepared by 234 scientists from 66 countries, warn that human activity has warmed the climate to a point that is unparalleled by anything in the last 2,000 years and that by 2019 atmospheric CO2 concentrations were higher than at anytime in at least 2 million years. The United Nations Secretary – General Antonio Guterres said the IPCC report was the ‘code red for humanity, the alarm bells are deafening and the evidence is irrefutable’. Hence the title for this installation which I’ve made specifically for the public space of Trongate 103 where the entrance to Street Level Photoworks is located.

The empty words issuing from the mouths of government leaders worldwide on the climate crisis continue to be backed up and supported by corporate profit for the good of share prices rather than human beings. The military-industrial complex is eating up the earth, spitting out the poorest people and waging war on them. The countries from which refugees flock have often been destroyed by the rapacious policies and weaponry of the very same countries that are refusing them entry.

CODE RED. COP 26. Glasgow, November 2021

Through photomontage I’m trying to turn my outrage into image. In Code Red a recurring image I use and abuse is the beautiful photo of the whole earth taken by the Apollo astronauts in 1972. I cut it up, tear it, pummel it, add industrial chimneys, oil refineries exploding, polluted dust, gas masks, parched earth and floods. But I also show a montage of the earth surrounded by a clock, symbolising climate/nuclear destruction, its hands being pulled back from midnight by climate protesters. There is also an image of planet earth transformed into a seed sprouting a tree. Photos can become entwined through photomontage so that the increasing destruction of the natural world can be envisaged and revealed not as inevitable but the result of human activity. The resulting montage can then be used a visual arm of the struggle for climate justice.

In a photomontage two clicks of the camera shutter can be brought together to reveal a third meaning. What is shown in Code Red is that oil is still flowing freely out of the ground, the chimneys are still belching out their pollutants and luxury yachts are growing longer by the day. E.M Forster’s dictum ‘only connect’ applies equally to making montages connecting the catastrophe that is climate destruction and its relationship to military power. They are both existentially and physically deeply connected. The U.S military is the largest single consumer of petroleum in the world.

We’re living in a time of absolute emergency. We’re tottering through the rubble of the rampant free market. It’s a time in which images can open up a critical space that can jolt assumptions and break through denial. The poet Shelley wrote that ‘we must imagine what we know’. By picturing the result of extracting wealth out of the ground by every means possible I’m trying to picture what we know will happen if we don’t stop this plunder.”

We invite everyone to participate in the global stakeholder consultation process. Anyone can now submit a public statement at the Center for Global Agenda (CGA) https://unbuiltlabs.com/cga

Thank you for your support.

Contact
Marvin Cheung
Head of Research and Strategy, Unbuilt Labs
marvin@unbuiltlabs.com