Conversations on Creative Climate Leadership Podcast

Meet co-hosts Louis VI and Farah Ahmed.

Louis VI is a Rapper, Musician, Zoologist, Wildlife film presenter & Nature activist from North London. Using his unique position as both a rapper/musician and a Zoologist, he uses the sound of nature as an emotive way of talking about climate change and biodiversity and to connect young people, especially from the diaspora, with nature.

Farah Ahmed is the Climate Justice Lead at Julie’s Bicycle. She manages the Creative Climate Justice programme, developing resources, curating events and advocacy, connecting environmental, racial and social justice, and creative activism. Farah is also a facilitator on the Creative Climate Leadership programme.

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How can playfulness interact with our Climate Action? Our host Louis VI is joined by theatre-maker and experience designer Toby Peach and director and theatre-maker Ntando Cele, who invite us to think about how humour can connect us to difficult subjects. Toby and Ntando discuss playful activism as a tool to engage audiences with creative climate action, inspire empathy across borders, and give us the permission to step into leadership on climate action.

Toby Peach is an award-winning theatre maker & experience designer who specialises in using games & play to engage young people and communities to spark change. As Associate Director at Coney, he developed a practice called Playful Activism that uses game mechanics to explore social change, particularly focused on climate justice, which he has been developing alongside Greenpeace. He has made digital playable experiences that have landed in heritage sites, museums, classrooms and hospitals across the UK and worldwide.

Ntando Cele is a director and theater maker from South Africa. She has created and staged numerous political and musical comedies since 2012. In 2023, she won the Swiss Diversity Award for “Wer hat Angst vorm weissen Mann” & the Swiss Prize for Performing Arts from the Federal Office of Culture.

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How can culture tell another story about the climate crisis? Louis VI speaks to producer and artist Eliki Reade and cultural leader Julie Forchhammer about how the arts and culture can utilise our power as an industrial ecology, to challenge the influence of fossil fuels through grassroots action and in policy spaces. They explore art and culture beyond professionalisation, and generate ideas on how we could live “artfully” alongside the more-than-human world.

Eliki Reade is an Interdependent Producer and artist of kailoma-Fijian heritage. Eliki works with many forms of storytelling and the ways it is creatively embodied, engaging with work that centres the practice, creating critical connection. They wear multiple creative hats including Curatorial Collective member at MPavilion, Co-instigator with Lana Nguyen for A Climate For Art, a collaborator with Big Four Holiday Camp – Aaron Claringbold, Jack Mitchell and Rebecca McCauley – amongst many other personally fun and exciting projects and loves.

Julie Forchhammer is the co-founder of Norwegian non-profit Klimakultur, working for climate justice and a fossil free culture sector. She lives in the mountains in Vang in Valdres with the national park Jotunheimen next door. Previous jobs include: festival manager Vinjerock, environmental manager Øyafestivalen, advisor and board member The Rainforest Foundation Norway.

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How we connect to the earth and each other is more important than ever. Designer Gaja Mežnarić Osole and visual artist Allison O’Connor talk to Louis VI about how public art in unexpected spaces can engage communities with nature, and in turn help us to repair our relationships with each other and the more-than-human world.

Gaja Mežnarić Osole is a designer, working in cross-disciplinary fields between design, ecology and participation. She currently runs an NGO Trajna with her working partner Andrej Koruza.

Allison O’Connor is a Franco-Canadian multidisciplinary artist and art administrator working at the intersection of ecology and public art. Her practice emphasises the symbiotic relationship between artists, audiences, and the ecological context they occupy. Allison generates artworks that consider the environment and its inhabitants by utilising environmental sciences and consultative practices.

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How can we collectively explore different kinds of care? Louis VI talks to choreographer Dawit Seto and arts manager and curator Ceyda Berk-Söderblom about how creativity supports climate leadership from the Global South, and provides insight on why we need diverse approaches to language beyond words and through sensory expression.

Dawit Seto, a performing artist in African contemporary dance and choreography based in Switzerland, merges migrant histories with a strong climate justice advocacy in his art. As co-founder of Contemporary Nights, Dawit hosts events for artists to shine in Addis Ababa and East Africa.

Ceyda Berk-Söderblom, Helsinki-based arts manager, curator, festival programmer, entrepreneur, and expert of DEI, is the artistic director of MiklagardArts, a facilitator for transnational and transcultural collaborations. With over 20 years of experience, Ceyda has specialist knowledge in programming, curating, cultural branding, fundraising, advocacy, lobbying, societal transformation, and DEI management.

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How do we use our curiosity to move towards deeper connections? Host Louis VI, and guests researcher Zoe Rasbash and curator Mateo Chacón Pino discuss how research can utilise different forms of knowledge to develop communication strategies and actions to bring communities along.

Zoe Rasbash is a researcher, writer and programmer working at the intersection of creative industries and climate justice. She is currently Climate Action Researcher at Watershed in Bristol, a cultural organisation focussed on togetherness. She is co-founder of Lilith Film Club, climate editor for Shado-Mag and previously campaigned with UKYCC, Amnesty International and for the UN Taskforce on Climate Displacement.

Mateo Chacón Pino is a Colombian-Swiss art historian, curator and author. He has curated projects in Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany. Mateo Chacón Pino currently works as a research assistant at the documenta Institute and at the University of Kassel at the Department of Art and Society.

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True leadership takes a lot of creativity and courage. Climate justice activist Payal Parekh and artist, activist, permaculture teacher Guy Ritani join Louis VI to talk about how creativity can feed into grassroots-led climate activism, and shape global climate policy in a truly intersectional and intergenerational way.

Payal Parekh is a climate scientist turned international climate justice activist mobilising ordinary people to get active on climate justice. She joined her first action at the age of 17 and has belonged to various movements since then on three continents. Payal has developed many winning campaigns and is an expert on successful strategies for social change.

Guy Ritani is a Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Koata, Ngāti Kahungunu & Macnamara takatāpui Māori artist, activist, designer and teacher currently living on Kombumerri Country. They are co-founder of PermaQueer, Pacific Climate Warrior & community organiser and President of regional arts council Tamborine Mountain Arts Collective.

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Co-host Farah Ahmed closes the podcast series with an introduction to Julie’s Bicycle and unpacks why we developed the Creative Climate Leadership programme.

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