“No witchcraft, no enemy action” had produced our “stricken world.
The people had done it themselves”

Rachel Carson, 1962

At the bottom of every climate protest is a singularly desperate cry for help, a clarion call for all civil society to rise in action against environmental corruption and criminal degradation of vulnerable ecologies. To face or ‘deface’ isn’t the question, the protection and guardianship of the environment for future generations is front and centre of all climate action. According to mainstream science, all life depends on it.

Tracing the history of climate activism, REVOLT features performance, dialogue, painting, sculpture, and multi-media to explore civil society’s role and response to industrial-scale destruction of the earth’s ecosystems to re-imagine a decolonised future, with a focus on repairing and regenerating the natural world.

Through REVOLT the artists are the activists who respond to the best available science, addressing systemic injustice and interrogating the notion of civic responsibility.

Artists:
Annie Bolitho, Melissa Corbett, Olga Dziemidowicz, Mark Edwards, Kate Gorringe-Smith, Julian Meehan, Sarah Metzner, Simon Rigg, Tharshiv Suresh, Jahan Xanlü, as well as CLIMARTE  and ClimActs ‘Creativists’. Creative Producer, Gomathi Suresh.

REVOLT is honoured to exhibit artworks on paper produced by local ‘school strikers for climate’ in collaboration with the City of Yarra’s Climate Emergency Team, Melbourne Girls’ College and CLIMARTE.

Exhibition Details:
Where: CLIMARTE Gallery, 120 Bridge Rd, Richmond
When: 15 March – 22 April 2023

Public Program and Discussions:
20 April 2023, 6 – 7.30pm led by REVOLT’s Creative Producer Gomathi Suresh, an inclusive conversation with Dr Joan Staples, Honorary Principal Research Fellow, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University and author of Guarding Eden: Champions of Climate Action, performative climate activist and CLIMARTE Chair Deborah Hart.

22 April 2023, 2 – 4pm a special closing event led by School Strikers for Climate.

Image: ‘The Exceptional Network’ (detail) a collaboratively made artwork by CLIMARTE Creativists especially for REVOLT. Image by Julian Meehan