Anna’s Journey: A short play about climate breakdown, unsustainability and global inequality

Amanda Slevin*, Roxanne Elliott, Rosie Graves, Colleen Petticrew, Alexandra Popoff

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Non-textual formPerformance

Abstract

The 'Green Arts' team co-created a short drama ‘Anna’s Journey’, as part of our project 'Creating our Vision for a Green Fund' (funded by QUB's Green Fund). As Boal (2007) points out, 'theatre can present ‘a vision of the world in transformation and … the means of carrying out that transformation’ and our team felt a drama on socio-ecological issues offered a valuable mechanism to communicate socio-ecological issues, prompt critical thinking and, hopefully, action among those who engaged with our wider project.

Art can 'contribute to changing the consciousness and drives of the men and women who could change the world’ (Brookfield, 2005, pp. 201-2) and the development process for 'Anna's Journey' was influenced by Freirean pedagogy. An outcome of co-intentional, problem-posing education within our Green Arts team, we designed the play as a non-formal educational tool for adults to learn about climate breakdown and unsustainability. The play was a central feature of a series of public events on socio-ecological issues that we organised / co-organised during the 2018-19 and 2019-20 academic years.

Our team's process of devising characters and narratives within the play entailed collective analysis of cross-cutting inequalities of class, gender, race and socio-environmental injustices across local and global scales. ‘Anna’s Journey’ advanced from decodification to development of generative themes like global inequalities, unsustainability and climate breakdown encompassed within short scenes designed to prompt deep reflection. Each scene involved actors’ performance and aural inputs which were enhanced by related images and brief research findings read by the Narrator and also displayed on an accompanying projector.

People engaging with the play encountered auditory, visual and written codes
associated with generative themes and were encouraged to decode codifications during discussions which followed each performance. ‘Anna’s Journey’ is based on fictional characters yet presents real socio-ecological issues interwoven with societal processes of production and consumption. By presenting narratives
of four characters (from Northern Ireland, Brazil, India and Mozambique), our play illustrates vast differences in life-experiences of indigenous peoples in the Global South and wealthy tourists from the Global North, pointing to intersectional inequalities on a global scale. It also elucidates socio-ecological consequences on countries which bear least responsibility for cumulative GHGs driving climate breakdown, using creative methods to make the global local and problematise societal interactions with our life-sustaining environment.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Keywords

  • Climate breakdown
  • Sustainability
  • Unsustainability
  • Climate action
  • Freirean Pedagogy
  • Community Arts
  • non-formal learning
  • adult education
  • Community education
  • community engagement
  • public engagement
  • Drama, Theatre, Performance Art

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Sociology and Political Science
  • Education

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Anna’s Journey: A short play about climate breakdown, unsustainability and global inequality'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this