“Interconnected”: What’s Next For Earth’s 2020 Last Art Call

INTERCONNECTED

As we near the end of 2020, What’s Next For Earth’s last art call asks these questions:

• How do you find comfort in a world that is falling apart in so many ways?
• What makes you feel deeply interconnected with others and with the natural world?
• How does a shift from a narrative of domination and accumulation to a narrative of respect and sobriety look like? 

For better or for worse, the pandemic has shown us how interconnected our world is. We have created an extremely globalized world where people and goods travel intensively, enabling Covid-19 to quickly spread and alter the human experience across the globe. The world stood still, and we realized how much we need the people who take care of our health, our food, and how much we value the connection with those around us. Being unable to spend time with friends, family, and community have made us ponder the importance of our connections. We’ve learned the immense value of a simple touch, a smile, or a hug. We are learning the importance of our relationships, and the interconnectedness we have across the globe. 

The world is facing a poly-crisis, in which climate change is a monumental challenge. We are already seeing its consequences all around the globe. Hurricanes intensify, forests burn, ice caps are melting, the ocean is acidifying, biodiversity is in free fall, inequalities are growing. By over-using the natural world and consuming nature’s resources as if they were unlimited and creating exponential pollution and waste, we are cutting the very branch we are sitting on. 

The story we are told: consume more to be happier, is incompatible with living in harmony with our planet. Even if we could switch to renewable energy easily, it would not solve the fundamental problem we have: our entire system is based on economic growth. And economic growth is the measure of the destruction of nature. 

But other stories are possible, stories where communities interconnect with the natural world in a respectful way, where it is possible to share Earth resources and space with other species. A world where humans do not take over every single wild space on this small planet. Understanding our vital interconnections with the natural world will make us understand why we need to limit ourselves in order to maintain a livable planet.