Field Notes: More on the Strength of a Voice
New York Climate Week is just behind us.
I am not in New York this week. I cannot take time away to participate in the climate discussions that I am sure are exciting, innovative and informative. And I will do my best to catch up by watching some of the on-demand videos.
I am looking at the events and the talks and just a glance demonstrates the lens through which the event is curated. I understand that by being in New York, there will be a particular way people would want to view these events. What I am trying to say is that it’s increasingly not enough for me. I am looking to see who is included and who is not included in these talks and events. I want to understand what the echo chamber looks like and why it is so large and echoey.
This feels repetitive, especially if you read my newsletter last week when I explained why I thought some voices and some narratives were stronger and more far-reaching than others. I think we forget how global, how complex, how nuanced so many of these issues are and how a lot of these complexities sit in site specificity.
I am also sitting with this now because I am looking at all the material I collected from the Arctic Circle and all the material I still want to produce and I don’t know how to make a lot of this relevant to Singapore, to my tropical island that relies on movies and postcards to tell the people what the Arctic is.
These are a lot of initial thoughts as I try and work through what I need to work through and I don’t know if a lot of it makes sense yet. I just know this is interesting. Thank you for listening to my strange rants.
This week’s curiosities:
It’s a bit of a long read but I did find a Substack post by Renee Lertzman in how ‘impact’ gatherings can make an impact. You can read it at this link. I wonder how I would feel reading this if I was at Climate Week in New York this past week.
No Stupid Questions Podcast asks when do you become an adult? After listening to the episode, I don’t think anyone knows the answer.
Critics at Large Podcast has this episode about the changing nature of nature documentaries. I’m a bit disappointed that they did not discuss how these films also can encourage audiences to want to go out and visit these spaces and that may exacerbate the problems.