Photo: National Museum of the Philippines/Facebook
It was upon learning about the Gaia Theory — "all forms of life combined with the physical systems around them are vital to regulating the Earth's delicate chemistry and temperature," he shares — that Paranada's engagement with climate change became deeper. For me, my role is is to be able to distill and translate theory and complex data relating to the climate crisis in contemporary art exhibitions into action and from that action into a new form of living.
The emphasis on climate and sustainability enticed me, as I believe the climate crisis is one of our generation's most pressing, challenging and complex issues. All of these philosophical ideas are hinged upon the idea of development, of enlightenment that led to colonialization, which is horrible, which was soon followed by capitalism and the massive extraction of resources that soon became a practice.
Now is not the time to play the blame game, but to come together as nations and as a people to start addressing what we can do with preventing another kind of catastrophic event from happening.But in places like the Philippines, people prefer cars because to take the train for instance, we need to wake up before dawn and endure long lines, and to take the bus, to sit through heavy traffic as well.
These could be further programmed by introducing cycle lanes and covered walking paths in major thoroughfares. If we want something radical, then the government should start introducing ways to encourage people to go car-free or create a program to carpool, introduce collective living habitats, install solar PV panels, switch electricity to renewable sources, introduce vegan or vegetarian diets at the workplace and encourage it at home, recycle.
Hopefully it will happen soon. We not yet there so what can we do now is to have that conversation and lead the people to realize it is a crisis.My idea is basically to look at historical objects from — I guess let's just say "antiquities" to mean a particular era that is now gone but still very relevant in the 21st century, reminding us of who we are as human beings.