What does a climate safe future feel like to you?

The future is in our hands, and this is what it could be! Over the summer we asked artists across Te Whanganui-a-Tara to imagine what a climate safe future could look like through art. What you see before you is a collection of this work and the messages these artists are trying to convey. 

We believe that hope is an action that we have to practise, and imagination is a powerful tool when we are so often faced with apocalyptic messages. We wanted to collectively vision what a climate safe future looks, feels, and sounds like - and we’re not done yet! 

We welcome you to spend some time in this space and share in the hopeful visions and amazing artwork. We hope this work inspires you to share your own climate hopes for the future throughout your community, as it has done for us! Most of all, remember that together we can make the future we want to live in!

David-James Griffin

Choice: My art shows two choices. The first choice is if we do nothing about climate change. The water will rise and there will be litter in the ha...

Ethan Qin

The Sad Polar Bear: The reason behind why I drew this is to represent that polar bears are now endangered. Climate changing makes things difficult ...

Matthew Baigent

There Is No Planet B: My piece of art is a girl in the future or an alternate timeline where climate change was solved. There would be less dried g...

Ritchie Manuele

Keep Pollution Fiction: This painting is an illustration of a future where pollution is non-existent and now fiction. It shows a young girl discove...

Francesca Rae

Ponga Trees: The first is both a painting and poem. I found such beauty looking at the Ponga trees that grow in our bush and wish there was more re...

Sam Tinalen Kennedy

The Climate Safe: The entry paper said “How would you imagine a climate safe future?” So, I came up with the idea of a literal Climate Safe in the ...

GreenCoastlines

Green Coastlines: A green space, where solar sailboats connect communities and Whānau by bringing in local products, where sustainable urban develo...

Shan Jordan

GarbAge: This is a piece of art as a song I wrote when looking at the news on TV and seeing a river filled with plastic bottles. A climate safe fut...

Natalie Mitchell-Lowe

Climate Change Posters: These posters play with words, Wellington (sometimes), and culture to make nonsensical connections to climate change and ch...