COAL Prize 2019 at Pompidou Center and COP25
Finalists of the 2019 COAL Prize, with COAL, PDD and DISPLACEMENT at the Pompidou Centre, ©Julie Bourges
LENA DOBROWOLSKA AND TEO ORMOND-SKEAPING
WINNERS OF THE 2019 COAL PRIZE – CLIMATE, DISASTERS AND DISPLACEMENT
Artistic duo Lena Dobrowolska and Teo Ormond-Skeaping were awarded the COAL Prize yesterday for their project You never know, one day you too may become a refugee during a ceremony organized at the Georges Pompidou Center, in the presence of Serge Lasvignes, President of the Georges Pompidou Center, ten nominated artists, members of the jury, Mariam Traoré Chzalnoel from the International Organization for Migration, as well as the Platform on Disaster Displacement and Displacement: Uncertain Journeys, associated with this special edition CLIMATE, DISASTERS AND Displacement.
The 2019 COAL Prize – CLIMATE, DISASTERS AND DISPLACEMENT, will also celebrated at the COP25 in Madrid
A ceremony in honor of the laureates and several interventions around the ten nominated projects will also take place during the 25th International Climate Conference (COP25) in Madrid, in particular on 4, 5 and 6 December in the French Pavillon, which has been chairing the Platform on Disaster Displacement since July.
You never know, one day you too may become a refugee
“You never know, one day you too may become a refugee”, said a senior civil servant in Uganda about its migration policy. Although it faces some of the highest poverty levels in the world, Uganda has welcomed over 1.3 million refugees in the last two years. This is one of the many examples of generosity shown by countries that are most threatened by climate change, which also lead the way in developing, introducing and negotiating progressive migration policies and constitutional laws related to climate change. Such efforts contrast starkly to the increasingly restrictive immigration practices in the world’s richest countries. But times are changing, and those who have been spared to date could soon become “refugees” themselves.
In the speculative future imagined by the artists, violent meteorological phenomena and rising sea levels have displaced an increasing number of people in the world. Well-established migration routes are inverted, with numerous residents of the Global North seeking refuge in the Global South. Lena Dobrowolska and Teo Ormond-Skeaping wish to create a docu-drama that retraces the steps of a white, middle-class family displaced to Africa or South America following a disaster.
Their fictional universe is designed as a tool for raising awareness, sharing knowledge, and engaging in dialogue about displacement and migration. The artists plan to organize events at major climate conferences, in schools and in arts centers where people can come together to imagine future scenarios through a film screening, opportunities for exchange, a photographic exhibition, fictional documents and workshops. In doing so, they highlight our shared vulnerability in the face of climate change and remind us how essential generosity and inclusion are to our survival.
Lena Dobrowolska and Teo Ormond-Skeaping (Poland and United Kingdom)
Born in Lubin, Poland in 1985, and Plymouth, England in 1987, respectively. Live and work in London, England.
The pair joined forces in 2012 and use documentary and photography to reveal the omnipresence of power relationships, environmental racism and political violence in our globalized society by working in partnership with researchers, NGOs, policymakers and international institutions in areas severely affected by climate change. Winners of the 2016 Culture and Climate Change: Future Scenarios residency, Dobrowolska and Ormond-Skeaping’s work has been exhibited worldwide, including most recently at the Noorderlicht International Photography Festival (2019), Ci.CLO Bienal Fotografia do Porto (2019), Kunst Haus Wien (2019), Unseen Amsterdam (2018), Fotofestiwal, Lodz (2018), Photomonth, Krakow (2016), Festival Fotograf, Prague (2014), and The Grey House Foundation, Krakow (2016).
THE 2019 COAL PRIZE SHORTLIST
Firoz Mahmud – Bangladesh - Soaked Dream Project
FLATFORM (Roberto Taroni and Annamaria Martena) – Italy - That which is to come is just a promise
honey & bunny (Dr. Sonja Stummerer and Martin Hablesreiter) – Austria - eat | disaster | art
Jad El Khoury - Lebanon- Curtains of Hope
Justin Brice Guariglia - United States - REDUCE SPEED NOW! x Climate Refugee Crisis
Lena Dobrowolska et Teo Ormond-Skeaping - Poland, United Kingdom - You never know, one day you too may become a refugee
Lucy Hayto - United Kingdom - All Things Will Change
Maria Lucia Cruz Correia – Portugal/Belgium - Voice of Nature Kinstitute
Mélanie Pavy – France - CITIZEN OMEGA
Mélanie Trugeon et Claire Malary - France - Le désert d’Ata
THE NOMINATED PROJECTS
Since 2009, an estimated one person per second is displaced following sudden-onset disasters. More than a hundred million people around the world could be displaced as a result of these impacts if nothing is done to address the impacts of natural hazards and climate change, including droughts, flooding, earthquakes, tsunamis but also slower changes such as desertification and sea level rise.
Many of these environmental causes that lead to displacement are inherently linked to political, economic and social factors. The COAL Prize will be at the negotiating table at COP25 this December in Chile to help ensure that political decisions translate into concrete changes for a shared and livable Earth. COAL’s presence will amplify the voices of artists from all over the world to share their testimonies and visions for a world more respectful of ecological balance and climatic justice. Through their creations, artists can encourage policymakers to understand and act on the reality of displacement linked to climate change.
Witnesses of our times, artists have the capacity to raise awareness and incite action by making the increasingly palpable yet diffuse effects of climate change on people visible.
FLATFORM, an Italian artistic duo composed of Roberto Taroni and Annamaria Martena, presents the highly symbolic case of the Tuvalu islands in That which is to come is just a promise, in an immersive video installation whose format adapts to the sea level.
American artist Justin Brice Guariglia repurposes luminous highway panels to flash texts that engage displacement associated with disasters and climate change in his project REDUCE SPEED NOW! x Climate Refugee Crisis.
The global climate imbalance provokes environmental destruction around the world. English photographer Lucy Hayto captures the devastation of coastal erosion in small seaside towns on the British coast in All Things Will Change.
Far from photographic realism, French duo, Mélanie Trugeon and Claire Malary’s dreamy drawings in the graphic novel Le désert d’Ata, address the idea of survival in a hostile environment through the tale of an ornithologist in a desert.
Through actions rather than representation, artists also build local initiatives that pave the way for international mobilization.
Through her Voice of Nature Kinstitute, Maria Lucia Cruz Correia develops an unprecedented legal and artistic institute as an alternative to the current system of environmental justice.
To question and challenge norms, honey & bunny, a collective composed of Dr. Sonja Stummerer and Martin Hablesreiter, plan to invite politicians, scientists, activists, citizens and displaced people to a disastrous dinner at an international summit, for eat | disaster | art to initiate a conversation by overturning daily customs and decorum.
Artists Lena Dobrowolska and Teo Ormond-Skeaping upend the stereotypical vision of displacement through the fictional documentary You never know, one day you too may become a refugee, in which a white middle-class family from the Global North displaced by climate change impacts is generously welcomed by a country of the Global South.
Through the power of narrative and imagining alternative futures, artists’ work can change mindsets and behavior.
Bangladeshi artist Firoz Mahmud collaborates with displaced families to create green glasses from fragments of the families’ possessions. He then photographs them wearing the glasses, inviting them to imagine their dreams for the future in Soaked Dream Project.
In Curtains of Hope, Jad El Khoury seeks to revive homes and towns abandoned by displaced people after disasters by decorating buildings with colorful curtains that give them a new lease on life.
In her film CITIZEN OMEGA, Mélanie Pavy attests to other futures that are almost here. She reconstructs the story of a Japanese family living in a new Japanese city, constructed in South India to prepare for an anticipated mass displacement following disaster.
A special COAL Prize on displacement related to disaters and climate change at the COP25
Since 2009, an estimated one person per second is displaced following sudden-onset disasters. Disasters such as droughts, floods, earthquakes and tsunamis have left many victims without shelter, clean water and other basic necessities. Meanwhile, slow-onset events, such as desertification and sea level rise, also force people out of their homes. Environmental issues are often intrinsically linked to the same political, economic and social factors that cause displacement.
A World Bank report released in March 2018 indicates that 143 million people around the world could be displaced by 2050 as a result of these impacts if nothing is done to halt climate change. Significant progress has, nonetheless, been made in recent years to address the gap in international law to improve protection for people who are displaced across borders because of disasters and climate change.
Tackling the enormous challenge we face begins by making it visible. This special edition of the COAL Prize therefore honors artists from around the world who are bearing witness, imagining, experimenting and working to create a world that pays more attention to ecological balance and climate justice. Through their creations, they can encourage policymakers to understand and act on the reality of displacement caused by climate change.
Awarded on the occasion of the COP25 in Madrid, in association with the Platform on Disaster Displacement and the cultural programme DISPLACEMENT: Uncertain Journeys, the COAL Prize will be present at the negotiating table to help ensure that political decisions translate into concrete changes for a shared and livable Earth.
THE JURY
Claire Hoffman – Artistic Director, Swiss Cultural Center in Paris
Claude d’Anthenaise – Heritage Conservator and Curator and Director of the Museum of Hunting and Nature
Elodie Royer – Curator, KADIST Art Foundation
François Rivasseau – Ambassador, Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations in Geneva and international organizations in Switzerland
Hannah Entwisle Chapuisat – Curator, DISPLACEMENT: Uncertain Journeys and Director, La Fruitière
Lucy Orta – Artist
Monique Barbaroux – Environment and Sustainable Development Commissioner, French Ministry of Culture
Paul Ardenne – Historian and art critic
Richard Le Quellec – Artist and Project Coordinator, Embassy of Foreign Artists, Switzerland
Walter Kaelin – Envoy of the Chair of the Platform on Disaster Displacement
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