Songs of Resilience: Bringing New Voices into Climate Research
Lead Research Organisation:
Manchester Metropolitan University
Department Name: The Manchester School of Architecture
Abstract
The arts and humanities can help us to reimagine socio-ecological futures and this impact is increasingly becoming recognised. The role of popular music is perhaps crucial but remains an under-explored area when addressing the challenge of climate change (e.g. Brennan et al. 2019). Our previous AHRC-funded projects, Fields of Green and When Tomorrow Becomes Yesterday, began to critically examine how song-writing and music can help to reimagine and shape the future of cities. This project roots these song-writing methods in the experience of one place - the Carbon Landscape - with our partner The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside (LWT).
The aim of this project is to explore the capacity of popular song to help our target audience of 14 - 18 year olds in Wigan and Leigh to imagine the future of the Carbon Landscape in the context of climate change. In doing so, the project will:
- explore young people's perceptions of past, present and future climate change through song-writing;
- provide the opportunity for young people to connect with different generations in their local communities and the Carbon Landscape partnership to talk about climate change; and,
- to understand and prompt young people engage to engage with wider conversations around wetland restoration in Greater Manchester and the future of the Carbon Landscape.
We will engage with a maximum of 10 young people, which is conducive to the participatory nature of the song-writing process. Three workshops will take place: two are in-person and one will be online.
Workshop 1 will begin with a site visit to the Carbon Landscape to explain thousands of years of change through the unifying aspect of carbon. Following the site introduction, participants will work with the academics and song-writers through a combination of the Roundview (to frame activities) and song-writing to draw out the emotional connections to the Carbon Landscape within the context of climate change. The Roundview uses graphics and hands-on tools to engage and educate people about ecology and sustainability, and to motivate and inspire people to engage with sustainable futures (Tippett and How, 2017). Song-writing workshops have also been successfully used to bring people together and to connect to the on an emotional level regarding climate change that similar techniques have been unable to utilise (Urie et al., 2019). Through this process, we anticipate that up to two songs will be collectively produced.
Workshop 2 will explore young people's ideas for making a video of the song for dissemination purposes. In this workshop, other methods of dissemination will also be discussed and we will take our young participants lead (e.g. using short insights for Tik Tok) which may help effective peer-to-peer dissemination to occur. Both of these workshops will take place on two consecutive days and, at the end, the song-writers will perform at a live music performance in the Lancashire Mining Museum, Astely Green (https://lancashireminingmuseum.org/).
Following video production, a further online workshop will be held with the young people, the Carbon Landscape partners, and members of the local community (through connected residents groups) Participants will be shown the resultant videos and asked to reflect on difference that song-writing made to the way that adults thought about this landscape and its future in the context of climate change. Partners in the Carbon Landscape include Natural England, The Environment Agency, Manchester City of Trees, and Salford, Wigan and Warrington Borough Councils. This workshop will not only help the evaluation of the project but will encourage inter-generational dialogue on the subject of climate change and post-industrial landscapes.
See 'Beneficiaries and Impact' to understand the potential impact.
The aim of this project is to explore the capacity of popular song to help our target audience of 14 - 18 year olds in Wigan and Leigh to imagine the future of the Carbon Landscape in the context of climate change. In doing so, the project will:
- explore young people's perceptions of past, present and future climate change through song-writing;
- provide the opportunity for young people to connect with different generations in their local communities and the Carbon Landscape partnership to talk about climate change; and,
- to understand and prompt young people engage to engage with wider conversations around wetland restoration in Greater Manchester and the future of the Carbon Landscape.
We will engage with a maximum of 10 young people, which is conducive to the participatory nature of the song-writing process. Three workshops will take place: two are in-person and one will be online.
Workshop 1 will begin with a site visit to the Carbon Landscape to explain thousands of years of change through the unifying aspect of carbon. Following the site introduction, participants will work with the academics and song-writers through a combination of the Roundview (to frame activities) and song-writing to draw out the emotional connections to the Carbon Landscape within the context of climate change. The Roundview uses graphics and hands-on tools to engage and educate people about ecology and sustainability, and to motivate and inspire people to engage with sustainable futures (Tippett and How, 2017). Song-writing workshops have also been successfully used to bring people together and to connect to the on an emotional level regarding climate change that similar techniques have been unable to utilise (Urie et al., 2019). Through this process, we anticipate that up to two songs will be collectively produced.
Workshop 2 will explore young people's ideas for making a video of the song for dissemination purposes. In this workshop, other methods of dissemination will also be discussed and we will take our young participants lead (e.g. using short insights for Tik Tok) which may help effective peer-to-peer dissemination to occur. Both of these workshops will take place on two consecutive days and, at the end, the song-writers will perform at a live music performance in the Lancashire Mining Museum, Astely Green (https://lancashireminingmuseum.org/).
Following video production, a further online workshop will be held with the young people, the Carbon Landscape partners, and members of the local community (through connected residents groups) Participants will be shown the resultant videos and asked to reflect on difference that song-writing made to the way that adults thought about this landscape and its future in the context of climate change. Partners in the Carbon Landscape include Natural England, The Environment Agency, Manchester City of Trees, and Salford, Wigan and Warrington Borough Councils. This workshop will not only help the evaluation of the project but will encourage inter-generational dialogue on the subject of climate change and post-industrial landscapes.
See 'Beneficiaries and Impact' to understand the potential impact.
| Title | The Undoing |
| Description | The song 'Undoing' resulted from a co-creative workshop with young people in Greater Manchester based on their reflections of the carbon landscape. The song is one of hope - that we have it within our power to reverse some of the damage from fossil fuel emissions and land use change. The song references the Manchester Argus Butterfly which returned to the carbon landscape after a period of restoration. The accompanying video was also co-created with young people who used footage that they had taken from the Carbon Landscape area. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The Lancashire Wildlife Trust intend to embed the songs within a walking tour of the site. |
| URL | https://mmutube.mmu.ac.uk/media/Undoing%20-%20Song%20from%20'Songs%20of%20Resilience'%20project/1_v1... |
| Title | Traceless |
| Description | Traceless is a song that emerged from co-creative workshops with young people in Greater Manchester based around their experience of the Carbon Landscape. Traceless explores human inaction around climate change but builds towards an ending which demonstrates that we can change our patterns of over-consumption. the accompanying videos, also co-created with young people from their footage of the Carbon Landscape, is juxtaposed with the lyrics to play with the sense of urgency that accompanies feelings towards the climate crisis. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The Lancashire Wildlife Trust plan to incorporate the songs into a walking tour of their site. |
| URL | https://mmutube.mmu.ac.uk/media/Traceless+-+Song+from+%27Songs+of+Resilience+Project%27/1_wm5be45n |
| Description | The aim of this project was to explore the capacity of popular song to help our target audience of 14 - 18 year olds in Wigan and Leigh to imagine the future of the Carbon Landscape in the context of climate change. The project: - explored young people's perceptions of past, present and future climate change through song-writing; - provided the opportunity for young people to connect with different generations in their local communities and the Carbon Landscape partnership to talk about climate change; and, - prompted young people engage to engage with wider conversations around wetland restoration in Greater Manchester and the future of the Carbon Landscape. We held one song-writing workshop in Wigan and one video making workshop online (due to the Omicron variant of Covid-19) and engaged with a total of four young people. We held an intergenerational workshop online which engaged with twelve people in total. We found that young people were more likely to engage with video making than song-writing - video making seems to be much more readily accessible and young people have prior experience and exposure to making videos in their lives. As expressed through the resultant songs and videos, our young people expressed hope about the future and that humanity could turn around the deleterious effects of the climate and biodiversity emergency. This can be seen through the song 'The Undoing' which notes that it is within our power to reverse fossil fuel emission damage and the loss of biodiversity - the return of the Manchester Argus Butterfly to the Carbon Landscape being the motif of the song. In addition, the song Traceless begins with guilt and a focus on human inaction but builds up to an end where the emphasis is on redemption. The intergenerational workshop provided an opportunity for older generations to listen to the songs and renewed their hope that things could change. |
| Exploitation Route | We found that the video workshops had far greater uptake than the songwriting workshops - possibly due to participant familiarity with making videos in their every day lives. It would be interesting to see more broadly the impact of music in opening conversations around climate change in multiple settings with multiple different audiences, and in different geographic regions. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy,Education,Environment |
| Description | The songs have been used by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust in presentations to the Environment Agency (31st Jan 2022). They are also incorporated into audio points around the Carbon Landscape that can be accessed by visitors to the walks around the site. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2022 |
| Sector | Education,Environment,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural |