Creating Change: The Power of Art in The Climate Movement + A Creative Workshop
The sciences are no doubt critical in driving action and influencing climate policy, however, many people are inspired to take action once they have connected with the realities of climate change on an emotional level. This connection can be experienced through stories that move beyond mainstream representations, in the form of art – literature, music, visual art, theatre, film and more.
This session aims to demonstrate and encourage art as an important mechanism to drive social change, focusing on climate conversations. Our panelists will highlight the role the arts have to play in driving social change, discuss their experiences of how art has had an impact on the climate conversation, and share their own creative projects.
The session will also include a poetry writing workshop, where we will help you walk through how to channel aspects of climate justice you care about into poetic expression.
The event will be co-hosted by Andy Rapista, climate activist and founder of Mad Earth and co-hosted and moderated by Karan Rathod, founder of Alfaaz – a literature and arts collective that helps writers and artists get their creative work out, improve literary skills; and to leverage the arts for social change.
Panelists:
Camilo Garzon
Camilo Garzón is an award-winning Colombian-American interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, writer, journalist, and multimedia producer whose creative practice has focused on ecology, memory, and the human relationship with nature, among others. With a background in multimedia storytelling and journalism including jobs at NPR and National Geographic, client work and multimedia productions for Stanford Center on Longevity's Century Lives, BirdNote, AGU's Eos, America's Test Kitchen's Proof, and Scientific American, among others, and as the founder and creative director of Cuentero Productions, he has extensive experience translating complex ideas into engaging narratives with unexpected characters, from documentary films like Las Muralistas and Junior Tu Papá, experimental plays like Soroche, to upcoming interactive multimedia installations like Cigarettes Until Tomorrow. This deep engagement now informs his other role as the Program Director for AskNature at the Biomimicry Institute. There, he leads the development of AskNature.org, the world's leading online resource for nature-inspired solutions, and the AskNature Hive, a global movement and online community of practice dedicated to creating a Nature Positive future. He brings a unique, arts-informed perspective to the challenge of communicating biological intelligence, working to make biomimicry accessible and actionable for creating a more sustainable and regenerative future."
Julia Solano
Julia Solano is a systems designer, bamboo installation artist, participatory researcher, and risograph printmaker from Oakland, California. She is currently Community Architect for The Tech We Want and was previously on Omidyar Network’s Exploration and Future Sensing team. She’s had various lives co-founding humanitarian AI companies, living in communes, cooperatives, and experimental cities and building bamboo and earth installations for festivals and land-based projects around the world. She’s deeply curious about relationality and power shifting – how we work and be together well as collectives and with the more-than-human world.
Karan Rathod
Based in Brooklyn, Karan is a writer, poet and works on documentary films. He is the founder of Alfaaz, a literary and art organization focused on helping writers, artists and creative organizations get their creative work into the world through publishing, exhibitions, collaborations and development. His artistic ethos revolves around helping people tell stories, whether through words, film or any other form of art and leveraging those mediums to educate and inspire actions around social justice.
Andy Rapista
The Philippines is one of the most vulnerable countries to the climate crisis. I grew up on its frontlines, living through torrential typhoons that flooded entire cities and extreme droughts that sparked forest fires and devastated our crops. I’ve witnessed mountains scarred by landslides from illegal logging and coral reefs bleaching across our islands over the years.
To solve for these challenges, I now serve on the board of MAD Earth, a sustainable tourism company & foundation working to restore ecosystems and support local communities. We're reforesting 3,000 hectares of indigenous land, 33 hectares of mangroves, and 5 hectares of coral reefs across the Philippines.
I'm also producing and directing a documentary that explores the deep connections between climate, poverty, conservation, and coral reefs in coastal communities around the world. We've now crossed the 1.5°C threshold — a point at which 70–90% of coral reefs are projected to die. Over a billion people depend on healthy reefs for their survival, and I’m passionate about sharing the stories of those living and leading on the frontlines of climate change.
Run of Show
6:00 - 6:30: Panel
6:30 - 6:45: Q&A
6:45 - 7:15: Workshop
7:15 - 8:00: Mingling
By registering for this event, you agree to share your registration information with the organizers of SF Climate Week.