Climate Crisis & The Arts : Adelaide Festival

How can the power of the arts create and inspire positive change for a better future?

Julie’s Bicycle continues it’s collaboration with Adelaide Festival through a free one-day ‘Climate Crisis & The Arts’ event on Friday 11th March. The event will bring together the arts and sciences to discuss climate action, storytelling and sustainability. This long-distance relationship is part of the UK/Australia Season, a cultural exchange celebrating diverse and innovative artist communities and cultural sectors of each nation. 

Inspiring talks, installations and performances will take place across two stages. The programme runs from 9.30am to 5pm Adelaide SA time, and there will be an option to watch recordings online post-event. 

The key questions that will be tackled throughout the day are:

• What roles do creativity and the arts play in inspiring change? 
• Can they help reimagine and create a better world? 
• Can artistic communities create cultural movements? 
• How do we more sustainably share culture from opposite sides of the world?

Friday’s programme is full of a diverse array of speakers and performers; you can look through the full program here. 

Climate Synergy Across Time Zones 

Despite being 10,100 miles apart, Julie’s Bicycle and Adelaide Festival have achieved a lot together.  Most recently we convened the AF Culture and Environment Roundtable, in partnership with the British Council and Australia Council for the Arts. The Roundtable was designed as a platform for dialogue on culture and climate trends in the lead up to the upcoming Climate Crisis and the Arts event. The Roundtable brought together key representatives from the South Australian arts and cultural sector to discuss current culture/climate trends, challenges and solutions with a focus on First Nations and youth voices.

In Summer 2021 Julie’s Bicycle convened four other Culture and Environment Roundtables in Turkey, Indonesia, Colombia and Nigeria before a final event in Milan. You can read about the outcomes of these here.