Sensing Climate Mural in Bristol
By Rebecca Yeo and Sarah Bell
On Sunday 9th June, we opened a new Sensing Climate mural at Easton Community Centre in Bristol!
Over the last few months, we have been working with people in Bristol who are disabled, d/Deaf, neurodivergent, and/or living with long-term health conditions. People contributed images and ideas to highlight key messages about what needs to change in efforts to tackle the climate emergency.
Artist, Andrew Bolton of Community Murals CIC, put these ideas together into one mural design, which was refined in collaboration with all those involved.
Situating the mural
The mural is on the wall of Easton Community Centre in Bristol. It interacts with elements of an existing mural on the wall, developed in collaboration with disabled people subject to immigration controls and in the wider population.
The new mural highlights how the issues are all interconnected. The original mural was made up of a brightly coloured rainbow on the far left, with visions of how a more just society could be built. The rainbow is repeated three times. Each time it loses colour until the rainbow on the right is made up purely of shades of grey. Under the grey rainbow there is a memorial to Kamil Ahmad, a Kurdish man who was murdered in Bristol in 2018.
The new mural uses these rainbows to show the crisis that we are currently facing under the grey rainbow and to contrast this with the potential for a world of sustainability and justice that we could create under the colourful rainbow.
An edited image of the new Sensing Climate mural, situated around previous murals on the same wall.
Image credit: Mark Simmons
Please find a full description of the mural visuals via this Word document >>>
Filming the production of the mural
You can find out more about the messages behind the mural in the full description below. In addition, this short film (created by Redweather Productions) highlights the development of the mural and its key messages, as well as introducing some of the brilliant contributors.
A world of climate chaos
On the right of the mural, under the grey rainbow, there are images of current injustice and the catastrophic future that awaits us if policies and practices are not changed.
A bare, leafless tree is depicted in black silhouette, surrounded by military weapons. The arms trade kills and disables people, destroys the environment and diverts resources from the services and support needed for a caring society.
To the right of the weapons, a gaggle of stencilled Monopoly figures are running to a rocket to take them away from climate chaos and off to the moon, which has been ‘sold’ to them. The steps leading up to the rocket symbolise its inaccessibility to many disabled people.
Two disabled people are struggling to keep up with the Monopoly figures. This highlights the flaws in focusing on the goal of inclusion in the mainstream agenda. Many disabled people will always be left behind if people are valued solely according to economic contribution.
Black and white stencilled figures from the game, Monopoly, are running with bags of money towards a rocket.
Image credit: Mark Simmons
Meanwhile, underground, beneath the money men, is an empty bed, depicting the lives already lost, as well as people with invisible impairments and the ways in which disabled people are made invisible in prominent responses to the climate crisis.
Forging a path to an alternative world
The mural is not, however, without hope. Underneath the grey rainbow, somebody is holding a colourful rainbow umbrella. One mural contributor commented that there are many paths that go from A to B, but what if we don’t want to go to B?
People are helping each other underground. This community of people, including wheelchair users, long cane users, and a person lying down, are forging a path towards the colourful rainbow on the left-hand side of the mural, in the opposite direction to those of the money men.
On the left of the mural, this community are shown helping one another up from underground to the colourful rainbow. Here, there is a flourishing environment, with leafy trees, green grass, and a deep blue lake. The roots of a tree spell out the word ‘CARE’. This side depicts the world as it could be if we follow a path shaped by care and solidarity.
Stick figures are helping each other up from underground to a flourishing world above.
Image credit: Mark Simmons
Beyond inclusion
We cannot create a just and sustainable future simply by being included in business as usual. The scope for disabled people to be leading the creation of alternative paths is not intended to glorify struggle. However, in one of our initial workshops we asked what we learn from experiences of disability.
People spoke of empathy, solidarity, the value of rest, caring for each other and of recognising our interdependence. They reflected on the experience of different ways of seeing the world and of valuing what matters. These attributes are all critical to resisting the mainstream path that is currently destroying the world.
Together we can create a world of justice, sustainability, and care for each other and the planet.