October 14, 2021
Join When Is Now?—an open, evolving call for creative expression to demand urgent climate action! It is an open collaboration that seeks to create interweaving lines of poetry into a web that stretches across the planet, asking “When?” and demanding “Now.”
Organized by the Agam Agenda, the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), and the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC), with support from The Climate Reality Project Philippines, this global creative movement aims to ramp up action in the upcoming 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) and beyond. The initiative is steered by poet, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, and CVF Ambassador for Culture Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner.
Who can join When Is Now?
Anyone can join When Is Now! It’s an open, evolving call for creative expression and collaboration to demand for urgent climate action. All you need is a seed of an idea, a string of words, and your willingness to share your experience as well as acknowledge and respond to others’ experiences of the climate crisis. Everyone is encouraged to tend to the poem seeds of people living in other parts of the world.
How can I participate in When Is Now?
Visit whenisnow.org to submit your poems and seeds of creative climate action in many different forms. Prompts and submission guidelines may be found on the Submission Form.
You may also respond to poems that have already been exhibited. From the exhibition space, choose a poem or image that moves you, and then create your response. You may include lines from other contributions in your own poem or visual creations. All together, we will be interweaving lines of poetry into a web that stretches across the planet, asking “When?”, and demanding, “Now.”
How can I submit my work?
Go to the When Is Now Submission Form and upload your files to contribute. The team will confirm receipt of your work and notify you once your contribution has been accepted and published on the website.
Where will my work appear and will I be credited for it?
Your work will appear on whenisnow.org and may appear on the social media platforms of the CVF and Agam Agenda. Because When Is Now is an open collaboration built through linked poetry, your lines of poetry/ imagery/ prose may appear in the work of other contributing writers and artists. The organizers will guarantee proper attribution of your work when exhibited on When Is Now, Agam Agenda, and CVF platforms. While you retain copyright of your work, please be aware that contributing to When Is Now will mean making your submitted works available for anyone else to freely share and adapt your work.
Share these seeds of creative climate action! Tag us @agamagenda on social media. Use the hashtag #WhenIsNow.
I create art in different forms and modes of expression, such as painting, music, and performance. How can I contribute?
While When Is Now highlights poetry as an accessible and moving form of expression, other forms of artistic expression can be submitted. Feel free to respond to the call through music, visual arts, performance art, and more!
How will my participation contribute to climate action?
Your participation will help widen the conversation on climate change through poetry and art and amplify the demands of those who are most vulnerable to the climate crisis. Together, poems, murals, and other seeds of creative climate action will urge world leaders to act on the ecological emergency before us. The more people speak out on the climate crisis in creative ways, the more we can demand systemic changes. Beyond this, your contribution may be the seed that accompanies another person in another place on the difficult terrain of discovering new ways to survive and thrive in our beloved home.
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The Agam Agenda is a dynamic, shape-shifting platform for creative, trans-disciplinary collaboration designed to grow and contribute to fluid networks of climate-aware writers, artists, scientists, youth, and campaigners.
About Climate Vulnerable Forum
The Climate Vulnerable Forum is an international partnership of countries highly vulnerable to a warming planet. The Forum serves as a South-South cooperation platform for participating governments to act together to deal with global climate change.
About Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities
The Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities is an international non-government group advancing fair climate policy and low carbon, climate-resilient development. Based in the Philippines, it is engaged with the wider international climate and energy policy arena, particularly in Asia. It is recognized for its role in helping advance effective global climate action and the Paris climate agreement.
