SPARK #30: SPARK Declares?

SPARK is now two and a half years old. In that time, atmospheric carbon has gone from 416.5 to approx 422 parts per million and multiple climate records have been broken. As a network of artists wanting to intervene in the trajectory towards climate breakdown, our first session of 2025 provides an opportunity to take stock and look ahead, taking the Culture Declares! declaration as a framework.

Culture Declares Climate And Ecological Emergency was founded in 2019, and was the first professional declaration movement, inspired by local governments who were declaring emergency. The call to action has been taken up by many sectors including Music Declares, Architects Declare, Health Declares, Heritage Declares, Business Declares, Tourism Declares and others.

The core declaration states:
“We declare that the Earth’s life-supporting systems are in collapse, threatening biodiversity and human societies everywhere.

Alive to the beauty of our planet, we unite to challenge the dominant global power structures that fail to protect us as they disregard scientific consensus, silence marginalised voices and perpetuate ecocide.

As Declarers, we take action to harness the power of arts and culture to express heartfelt truths and address deep-rooted injustices, to care for and create adaptive, resilient and joyful communities, and to influence the urgent and necessary transformation of harmful global systems.”

Declarers are invited to adapt the declaration to make it meaningful to their work and context.

For this January session hosted by artist and SPARK co-ordinator Jane Lawson, we’ll take a brief look back at SPARK’s highlights since it started in summer 2022. We’ll then talk about whether we want to declare climate and ecological emergency, either as a network or as individuals, and what it might mean to us. We’ll use a simple manifesto-development technique to decide which parts of the Declaration feel right for SPARK and what we’d like to add. NB this doesn’t assume that SPARK will declare – that will come down to what people want to do on the day. If you can’t attend but have feelings either way, please let Jane Lawson know, either by emailing the SPARK list or emailing her individually on jane@castlefieldgallery.co.uk

For those that want to Declare as individuals, it’s a simple process, requiring a short description of your practice, your reason for declaring and an image. Simple and yet often surprisingly hard to get round to, so we’ll have some time to go through the process within the session; if you’re thinking of Declaring, please bring your laptop or other device!

We’ll also take a brief look at the Culture Declares toolkit and resources such as the Blueprint for Change

The session will take place in the top floor classroom at Manchester Museum. This space is wheelchair accessible.