Staging Climate Justice: Using Arts-Based Activism to Address Climate Justice
A collaborative project exploring how arts-based activism can be used to respond to the urgent challenges of climate change, brought together 35 climate justice activists from across South Africa,
a Johannesburg-based theatre company and researchers from the Universities of Leeds and Cape Town.
Led by PCI’s Professor of Performance and Social Change, Aylwyn Walsh, the project, Staging Climate Action, was funded £12,000 through a LAHRI Impact Acceleration Award to work in partnership with Well Worn Theatre Company (WWTC), Professor Paul Routledge (School of Geography) and Dr Alex Sutherland (University of Cape Town). Core partnership goals were to strengthen the capacity of grassroots organisations to mobilise communities and to raise the visibility of climate justice campaigns.
35 climate justice activists from across South Africa came together for a three-day gathering in Johannesburg. Participants included both artists and activists and through workshops they exchanged strategies and tactics, identified skills gaps, built new networks and increased confidence in using creative approaches within their movement work. Explaining why an arts-based approach to climate activism is valuable one participant stated: ‘Because arts can speak to and process emotions, we can move people from fear/denial… to action’.
https://www.chapelfm.co.uk/Walsh and Routledge also worked with WWTC to co-produce Burning Rebellion, a film developed with Amehlo Films which allows young activists to tell their stories of injustice and reflect on alternative futures. Inspired by the School Strike 4 Climate Movement, Burning Rebellion is a protest poem that acknowledges the complex and painful truths about climate change.
An online commenter on the film described it ‘as a daring and necessary statement’ and since its release in September 2025, it has achieved more than 10 public screenings and over 1,100 views and downloads.
The project also contributed to the development of a podcast series The Dissent Dispatches: Voices from Global Rebellion hosted by Routledge and broadcast by Leeds-based Chapel FM.
Images courtesy of Aylwyn Walsh
