Creative Toolkit for Climate Emotions

Connecting academics, artists and communities to develop a creative toolkit for coping with climate emotions.

Bridget Bradley has developed an impact project which was recently awarded a University Impact Innovation Fund. The project is a collaboration between artists, academics, and audiences at the front-line of climate work to deliver a Creative Toolkit for Climate Emotions. The Toolkit is intended as an interactive resource to help people reflect on their feelings about climate change; gain knowledge about resilience-building and action; and try out artistic activities to support wellbeing.

This impact project emerged from Bridget's research on climate anxiety in Britain ("Eco-Worrier, Eco-Warrior", funded by the Scottish Funding Council in 2020), and has been strengthened by recent collaborations with anthropologist/artist Dr Susan Wardell at University of Otago, New Zealand. This project will provide momentum for the ongoing work they have been doing alongside Gair Dunlop (Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design) and the team at the Centre for Energy Ethics in planning the Energy-in-Motion Conference.

Together, Bradley, Wardell and Dunlop, will collaborate with local schools, climate organisations, and freelance artists to design, develop and distribute the Toolkit over a series of workshops with different audiences. At a time when climate change, ecological breakdown, and biodiversity loss are spiralling at an unprecedented rate, so too are accounts of climate anxiety and distress around the world. This project aims to provide people with a way to cope with climate emotions, and learn about climate justice through engaging, reflecting, learning, creating and playing.