Through the Weather Glass (& what Icarus found there)
Interactive Art Installation Tour 2016
What if we travelled through the weather glass of climate change and participated in the world beyond rather that staring at our own reflection in the glass?
During 2016, an interactive art installation adaptation of my latest novel, Through the Weather Glass, went on UK tour, taking in dates in Salford, Todmorden, Leeds, , Bradford, Edinburgh, Hebden Bridge, Hull, Middlesborough, Hartlepool, Stockton, New Mills, Sheffield, Durham and Tebay Service station!
The installation invited audiences to participate in the story of a cycle expedition I completed from Salford in Ikaria in an attempt to work through my artistic struggles to respond to climate change. The resulting novel relates a fictionalised version of this journey in the persona of Icarus and a talking bicycle – a humorous, picaresque tale of my adventures through climate change which contrasts with the apocalyptic stories we more frequently hear and tell. In turn, the interactive art installation, with financial support from the Arts Council & Leeds Becket University, invited participants to pedal a bicycle to power an audio-visual display, to flick through an artist’s book and some large format climate-collage photographs, or to pen their own creative responses to climate change on some paper feathers to add to Icarus’s willow woven wings.
Through the installation, participants were encouraged to think about climate change in new ways. Rather than seeking solutions or to persuade audiences of a point of view, the Through the Weather Glass installation playfully asked audiences to participate in developing more positive responses to climate change than the apocalyptic norm.
lucy burnett 