Extinction Rebellion / Design Manchester Art School Takeover at the University of Salford
We are facing an unprecedented global emergency. Life on Earth is in crisis: scientists agree we have entered a period of abrupt climate breakdown, and we are in the midst of a mass extinction of our own making. We’ve seen decades of ineffectual campaigning, inaction from governments, and exploitation of the world’s natural resources. We need action, and we need it immediately.
Extinction Rebellion are the world’s fastest growing direct action movement and aren’t prepared to sit back and sleepwalk into the planet’s demise. From the start, creativity has been central to the aims and objectives of Extinction Rebellion. The look and tone of the movement, the ambition of its actions, the communication of complex and challenging issues has entirely been defined by artists, designers, performers and writers.
Through the joint efforts of XR, Design Manchester, the University of Salford’s Joanne Greenhalgh and Engagement Team a radical idea was born, why not go to the source to find creative solutions to the climate emergency?
For one day only in November 2019, the co-founders of the Extinction Rebellion Art Group landed at the University of Salford School of Arts and Media for a one day autonomous creative rebellion. They spent the day collaborating with staff and students from the University of Salford, students from Coventry University, Birmingham City University, Manchester School of Art, the University of Leeds, Hyper Island, Pendleton College, the University of Bolton and creative industry titans.
We are all creatives and creative people are natural problem solvers, thinkers and solution makers. The brief required openness, creativity and imagination to develop creative solutions to the problems the world is facing.
Participants were asked to organise, talk together, work together, support each other, invent things, devise strategies, produce films, posters, write poetry and songs; up end our approach to what and how we learn, make demands. Using any creative medium open to us, participants were asked to imagine a better, more resilient world - one that can cope with the immense challenges the planet is facing. Visualise, for us all to share, the changes we want to see and how our creativity can cause impact.
This publication is a collection of responses produced during a punk publishing workshop held throughout the [one day] rebellion. Self-publishing has been used throughout modern history as a tool of rebellion, from Riot Grrl and the feminist punk movement, to socialist issues, unionising and organised strike action to enact positive change and improve equality. Students and staff from different disciplines, schools and backgrounds worked together to produce this publication in answer to the philosophy of the rebellion and the spirit of self-publishing.
We wished to carry on the tradition of self-publishing with a hopeful message; change is now.
This publication is printed with Extract Paper from G . F Smith. In the UK it is said we use 4,861 disposable paper cups a minute, which is over seven million a day and right now, less than one in 400 cups are recycled. To combat this problem, G . F Smith has launched Extract, a new paper that aims to rid the planet of the waste generated by disposable coffee cups lined with plastic. Extract takes the disposable cup destined for landfill and transforms them into quality paper.
In order to reduce the environmental impact further we have used a Risograph printer to print this publication which is widely considered the most eco friendly form of printing in the world.
G . F Smith donated the paper to make this publication possible. It was designed, produced and bound in one day by staff and students at the University of Salford School of Arts and Media Bookbinding Studio.
Staff and Students
Emma Tominey
John Newton
Andrea Motta
Natasha Lambert
Sara Sousa
Nathan Kane-Frazer
Abbey Taylor
Elle Davies
