Intersectionality in Art and Climate

Intersectionality in Art and Climate

Panel talk: 6-8PM, Wednesday, 1st October

Basil Al-Rawi (Artist)
Tara Carroll (Artist)
Vanessa Conroy (Feminist Communities for Climate Justice, National Women’s Council)
Léann Herlihy (Artist)

You can listen to the talk on Substack or watch part of the talk on YouTube.

The climate crisis is not an isolated issue, it is deeply entangled with existing social, economic, and political inequalities. Gender, race, class, ethnicity, disability, and other intersecting identities determine both vulnerability and access to solutions.
Art and social action have the power to reveal the deep intersections between climate change and social justice, making visible the overlapping identities and inequities that shape how individuals and communities experience environmental crises.

Through the lens of intersectionality and just transition, we can recognize these disparities and explore how creative practices and collective action can act as a catalyst for awareness, and resilience, while challenging dominant constructs, amplifying marginalized voices and inspiring transformation within the communities.
In this discussion artists and activists offer their perspectives and the nuances within these realms. They not only reflect these realities but also play an active role in shaping new narratives, fostering solidarity, and imagining alternative ways of living in balance with the planet.

Intersectionality in art and climate approaches ecology as an intersectional mode, one that acknowledges the inseparability of environmental concerns from the broader systems.

We invite the wider community and communities of interest to join us in this open conversation, and share their insights and perspectives. Time is set before and after the talk to gather informally. Participants will be encouraged to ask questions and share their thoughts and experience in a relaxed exchange, blurring the usual roles of panellist and audience.

Biographies

Basil Al-Rawi is an Irish-Iraqi visual artist working across photography, film, sculpture, and digital environments. His practice explores memory, hybrid identity, and the mediated structures through which histories are constructed. He is the founder of the Iraq Photo Archive and the VR project House of Memory / بيت الذاكرة, developed through his PhD at The Glasgow School of Art. His work has been shown internationally, including at the International Centre for the Image, The Photographers’ Gallery, and Lahore Biennale. He is the recipient of numerous bursaries and awards, including the inaugural Gibson Travelling Fellowship from Crawford Art Gallery.

Tara Carroll is a transdisciplinary artist with a social practice which takes the form of performance, installation & creative social spaces. Their practice rests upon the perception of the body, impacted by socio-political narratives; and its placement in society. During difficult times of embodied conflictions as a queer non-binary disabled person, their community supports them in creating new pathways of care.
Tara is also a co-founder of ‘Chronic Collective’ with Áine O’Hara, a multidisciplinary art collective with a focus on radical accessibility and collective care in the arts.
Recent awards include: Arts Council’s Arts Participation Bursary [2023-24] Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Project Studio Award [2023].
Projects and exhibitions include: ‘Art as Pilgrimage’ [2022-25]; ‘84 Steps to Solace’ Planta Alta, Madrid; ‘(Dis)Comfort’, Planta Baja, Madrid [2023]; ‘Seeking Solace’, Temple bar Gallery +.

Vanessa Conroy is the Project Officer of ‘Feminist Communities for Climate Justice’, a joint project between the National Women’s Council and Community Work Ireland aiming to put a gendered, feminist and community work lens on climate justice. Previously, she worked as an occasional lecturer and academic tutor in Maynooth University’s Department of Applied Social Studies, teaching on environmental policy, climate justice, intersectional environmentalism and the connection between gender and the climate crisis.
Her MA research in Social Science (Rights and Social Policy) was a feminist policy analysis of the then-current Climate Action Plan (2021), investigating whether Irish climate policy disproportionately disadvantaged Irish women compared to men.

Léann Herlihy (they/them) is an artist, researcher and educator based in Dublin.
Their practice is informed by trans*, queer ecological, feminist and abolitionist theoretical frameworks which deploys alternative modalities of expression through an array of mediums including live performance, video, billboards, sculpture, text, workshops and radical pedagogies.
Refusing disciplinary coherence, their research dwells in the often incompatible and unarchived fragments physically found at the back of storage rooms or virtually spiraling down the threads of online forums as they scavenge for remnants of those who have been deliberately or accidentally excluded from society.