Art for Impact: Insights from the CHANGE NOW Summit

This article was written by Master’s student Leonard Brütting after attending a panel at Change Now called Art for Impact.

Art as expression

Artists are like messengers of their time, as Giulia Kessous said in her talk at the Change Now. So, what’s the message you want to shout out to the world?

For Giulia Kessous, a UNESCO Artist for Peace, it’s all about letting those who are struggling to be heard express themselves. Back when she was acting in theatre, she often felt boxed in by roles that didn’t let her truly be herself. That’s why she switched to directing—not to boss actors around, but to help them find their own voice. Combining her theatre background with her studies in positive psychology, she started creating plays with survivors, like those who lived through genocides, whose stories are often brushed aside. She believes every one of us has an artist inside, waiting to be set free.

Embracing slow living

Every two days, we create as much information as we did from the beginning of human history until 2003. Sounds like a crazy speed and an enormous amount of information that we are being bombarded with every day, right? This statistic is from the year 2010, so now, in 2024, the speed of new data creation is even faster. This constant flood of information can make us feel overwhelmed and stressed. That's why it's important to slow down sometimes.

Nicolas Dhers, CEO of Fluctuations, is all about making slowing down cool. His floating festival travels through France and Belgium, using the river to connect different places and people. Of course, Nicolas Dhers could drive from Lille to Brussels to take the festival equipment to the festival sites. But this concept makes it possible to slow down time and simply enjoy the moment. He was inspired to start this project when he travelled from Central to South America with a truck, putting on theatre shows at the places where he stopped. This can provide inspiration as so often we feel overloaded with the amount of information we consume through social media, our laptops and smartphones, that it is easy to feel overwhelmed and forget what is really important: moments shared with friends and family and moments of mindfulness and gratitude.

Transforming books into art

As part of Rachel Marks’ project Symfolia, she creates installations such as landscapes or trees made from recycled books. Again, time is a precious resource as it takes weeks, if not months, to create the installations, but it also allows her to reflect. She uses trees in her art as an expression of community. Books come from nature, they are written in different languages, express different ideas and are therefore also a symbol of environment and community.The synthesis of books, a man-made good that comes from natural resources and trees, encourages reflection on society's relationship with nature and how we can better connect with our environment. It’s an important message in the midst of climate change and its challenges for the economy and society!

Capturing climate realities

British photographer Nick Brandt is known for his photographs that explore the destructive impact of mankind on nature, but also on human beings. In his new series SINK / RISE, he portrays Fijian locals who will be affected by rising sea levels because of climate change. The images are shot underwater in what appear to be everyday settings, such as a man sitting at the dinner table with his father.

It dramatically illustrates how the homes and land people live on will become uninhabitable due to rising sea levels. Through his art, Nick Brandt gives a voice to the people he portrays and shows the strength and resilience in people's lives. Lives that often are much harder than most in the West. He says it is okay to be angry about injustice. But it is better to be angry and active than angry and passive, as it gives us focus and hope.