TippingPoint - commissioned artists to inspire and provoke a concerted response to the threats of climate change

TippingPoint, a new initiative set up to explore the role of public art in climate change, aims to 'harness the power of the imagination to help stabilise the climate'. Offering a range of activities centred on exposing creative artists to the enormous challenges of climate change; its key focus is a series of meetings involving intense dialogue between artists, scientists and others close to the heart of the issues. These encounters provide a chance to explore the broader cultural challenges precipitated by climate change.

Appreciation of the cultural implications, and exploration of the role that artists can play in understanding, interpreting, communicating and investigating the subject is critical to our thinking. TippingPoint’s role is to be a catalyst in facilitating this debate, and to find new ways of increasing the level of engagement of artists in this complex issue. In addition TippingPoint can make a significant contribution to how artists can be a critical player in the societal shifts in thinking and behaviour that are essential to combating the effects, current and future, of climate change.
The arts have consistently played a role in society in helping thinking shift from reflection to action

The TippingPoint commissions

The TippingPoint Commissions is a major new project to develop a critical mass of performance-based work conceived in the context of climate change. Launched in February this year TippingPoint received 178 proposals from across the UK proving the hunger and vitality of artists wishing to introduce audiences to the radical and imaginative thinking necessary to contemplate and inhabit a world dominated by climate change.

On June 30th, at the National Theatre, London, The Rt. Hon Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change announced 4 awards:

Manchester International Festival (MIF)

This new co-commission will enable the chosen artist to draw from scientific expertise and reach of TippingPoint and, working in dialogue with Manchester communities, evolve a new work which would hopefully premiere at the Manchester International Festival in 2011.

The LightSwitch Project by the LightSwitch Collective

“What happens when you switch on a light”. This simple question provokes a myriad of answers and sparks a million more questions. It generates excitement. The LightSwitch project will seize this microscopic moment and create a performance that connects the individual to the implications of their actions and their place in the world. The LightSwitch Collective includes Dartington College graduates (Propeller) and award winning film, TV and stage actor Toby Jones.

Trashcatchers’ Carnival by Project Phakama UK

Working ‘from the ground up’ the Trashcatcher’s Carnival will unite 60 artists and over 500 Tooting residents in a year long process looking at transition from a high energy to a low energy community. Working in partnership with Emergency Exit Arts and using art, carnival, celebration and the collective ingenuity of Transition Town Tooting, Trashcatchers’ Carnival will provide a large-scale promenade on the 2010 summer solstice and model of engagement and celebration for the Transition Town Network.

Third Ring Out by Metis Arts

At once a performance, a game, a simulation and a radical artistic event THIRD RING OUT uses the disaster movie genre to scenario plan our future. Shipping containers become emergency planning centres where audiences are invited to immerse themselves in a multi sensory, simulated climate changed world rooted in scientific fact. Coming to an urban space, a village green or a festival near you…in summer 2010.

source and for more information: http://www.tippingpoint.org.uk