#wearestillhere
#wearestillhere | Pandemic Portraits from the Climate Front Lines
#wearestillhere is a remote reporting project highlighting the stories of climate change scientists, activists, artists, journalists, and practitioners from across the world who have been impacted by Coronavirus. Many have found unique and innovative ways to continue their important work, despite encountering a vast array of challenges (i.e. loss of funding, canceled protests, losing family members to the virus, becoming ill themselves). That work has continued. It must.
Lia Zakiyyah (@liazakiyyah), 34, is the Program Coordinator for the Australia-Indonesia Programs on Sustainable Development & Climate Change, a research associate for the Institute of Sustainable Earth and Resources (I-SER) for the University of Indonesia (@univ_indonesia), and a climate change communication practitioner with Climate Reality (@climatereality) Indonesia.
“If we don’t give people being impacted by climate change a platform to voice themselves, or if we don’t educate and inform them about the danger of climate change and that they can do something - have to do something about it - we all lose,” said Lia. As a climate trainer with Climate Reality Indonesia, and was recently recognized by Al Gore (@algore) for her dedicated and successful work building the Indonesian program nation-wide. Lia’s work has actually seen some significant benefits due to the remote environment. In a country as vast as Indonesia with tens of thousands of islands, communication has become easier using remote platforms and financial resources have gone much further. They no longer have to fly in practitioners from remote islands across Indonesia to participate in meetings. Not only does this allow her work to be more inclusive, it allows her to reach remote corners of her country in order to expand her approach to outreach and education. Featured Data: Projected changes in extreme precipitation for Indonesia, World Bank Group (2020).
In March of this last year (2020), I (like the rest of the world) woke up to the reality of this global pandemic. As the world slowed to a halt, our businesses and schools closed, our community, friends, and family members became sick, we began to settle into our new lives. Yet, when this all started, I understood that we as a global society are facing a far more dire and urgent crisis that will outweigh any one single pandemic if we fail to address it. The climate crisis is a catastrophe that we simply cannot afford to take a day off from addressing, from talking about, from demanding action from our leaders on.
As the reality of the pandemic came closer into focus, I wanted to know what happened to the climate change scientists, activists, practitioners, storytellers, and more. And #wearestillhere was born. Using visual climate change data (from NOAA, NASA, the National Climate Assessment, USGS, World Bank Group, the IPCC, etc), I created portraits (remotely) with many of these individuals and asked them questions about their lives, their loved ones, and their work. How has the pandemic impacted them? Who have they lost? Have they become sick themselves? All images are captured in-camera, using several projectors in my home studio, one featuring extracted visual climate change data and the other showing the image of the participant on the canvas using Zoom or Skype.
The urgency that is required to address the climate crisis is immediate and real. The window for changing the course of history for the human race, for all life on this planet is closing quickly. We are the last generation to have the opportunity to reverse our current course of action and minimize the most severe impacts; devastating storms and floods, catastrophic wildfires, drought, famine, conflict disease, system collapse. But the reality is, we are also the last generation to reimagine and rebuild a brighter, more sustainable, equitable, resilient, and just future for all. We can right our mistakes from the past, choose science over fiction, progress over power. It’s not too late.