'Strike the Heart'

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LISTENING: to the plastic candy wrappers pile up
FEELING: sweaty
SEEING: my sweet angely co-work with me!

I'll admit: There's lots I still don't know about the world and all its histories. Take South African apartheid, for instance. I know the basics—racial segregation, land dispossession, and political disenfranchisement—but there's always more beneath the surface.

After witnessing the apartheid system in action in the West Bank earlier this year, I recognize I need to keep learning. I need to keep talking to people whose lived experiences help me understand where our world is headed. This feels especially nascient as Elon Musk, a white South African, solidifies himself as an individual with way too much power. And as Donald Trump positions Afrikaners as a group in need, welcoming so-called refugees into the U.S.

There are lots of actual refugees who need safety and shelter. They're not being allowed in. May none of the voters who supported this policy know the feeling of losing their home and searching for a new one.

I'm thinking about all this in light of a conversation I was invited to with a group of young artists last month. They're the 2025 cohort for Climate Storytelling 2075, which is working to inject art into the climate movement. I was joined by Kumi Naidoo, a South African human rights and climate justice activist. He knows firsthand what apartheid looks like. Now, he dedicates himself to the arts and fighting fossil fuel colonialism. His words left me inspired. We could all use some inspiration these days.

Below is a shortened and lightly edited version of our conversation, moderated by Bobby J. Dellinger, co-founder of the climate storytelling program.

BOBBY
Looking at the global climate justice movement, what gives you hope right now? Where do you see artists and storytellers and activists making the most lasting impact?

YESSENIA FUNES
What's giving me hope is the flotilla with Greta Thunberg on its way to Gaza. Quite frankly, the response to the genocide in Gaza from both the media, but also specifically climate and environmental communicators, has been silent and inadequate. So seeing Greta, one of the biggest faces of the climate movement, be so explicit and direct and open in her solidarity with Palestine has been really invigorating for me. I really needed to see that the movement stands with Palestine or, at least, one of the faces of the movement.

I was in the West Bank in April reporting on the Israeli occupation, and I came back feeling this calling from Palestine. The people there were clear that we in the U.S. have a major responsibility to step up and to stand with them—especially those of us who work on climate and environmental issues. The land is so connected to what the Palestinian people are facing right now.

It was a reminder for me to come home and do more work. I've been canvassing for Zohran Mamdani, one of the mayoral candidates here in New York. As a journalist, you're trained not to do that. But I started canvassing in large part because the people of Palestine looked me in the eyes and said, What are you going to do? What are you going to do back home after meeting with us here? So I've been trying to get into action. Seeing other folks in the climate environmental space, like Greta, going above and beyond has left me feeling less isolated. 

KUMI NAIDOO
Thank you, Yessenia. I will start by fully endorsing all those sentiments and comments. The starting point, I would say, is that we must recognize we have a problem if we continue to focus all our communications for climate justice on the basis of science, policy, and aim all our narratives at the head and rely too much on technical terms or acronyms that leave many people drowning in an alphabet soup. We're not going to reach as many people as we need to. What gives me hope is, like Yessenia, the unstoppable energy of young people.

One of the leaders of the energizing artivism global movement, Favianna Rodriguez, puts it wonderfully. She says, “Art changes people. People change systems.” From the school strikers of Fridays for the Future to the frontline activists in the Global South fighting fossil fuel colonialism, they refuse to accept the slow violence of greed and short-term politics and are winning.

In many places, courts are now recognizing climate inaction as a human rights violation. I'm not saying all courts, but many courts. And the myth of business as usual is crumbling very fast. We must, though, recognize that traditional activism, even though imbued with lots of courage, vision, and perseverance, is not succeeding in delivering victories that are on the scale and pace we need. Whether it's climate justice or intersecting struggles.

To be clear, were it not for this inadequate activism, we would be in a much deeper crisis than what the world finds itself in. Within that context, artists are a secret weapon. They bypass the brain and strike the heart.

Art doesn't just inform. It transforms. And importantly, art also helps us imagine futures that are yet to be born. They make the abstract personal. And that's where powerful movements are born. The task now, I would say, is to merge the radical imagination of artists with the fury on the streets because if we can dream the world we need, we can fight for it. Remember, every empire of oppression—from apartheid to fossil fuel capitalism—fell when culture and resistance became the same tide. 

We, I believe, are in that tide now.

BOBBY
Thank you so much for both of those responses. It's beautiful to be around people who are thinking so similarly and who also look at the movements that are happening around the world with so much hope. Because that is what I am getting from the Palestinian people: hope and determination to win and not give up.

You've both worked across media, geography, and generations. What have you learned about sustaining momentum without losing sight of imagination and joy?

YESSENIA
Well, I'm a journalist, which makes my job different from some other forms of art. Some journalists might not even consider themselves artists. I like to think of my writing as a form of art. Because so much of my work involves interviewing and speaking to people, they are the source of my inspiration, joy, hope, optimism, determination, anger, and motivation. All that comes from the people who are generous enough to give me their time.

What I can share that might resonate with everyone is the importance of speaking to people, of opening those doors, of keeping communication portals open. Carrying other people's stories and then sharing those with the world. That, for me, is the absolute best part of the job and a responsibility I don't take lightly. Anytime someone opens their doors or picks up the phone to share their opinions, thoughts, or lived experiences, their traumas, their hopes, their dreams, it's a responsibility.

All these people—activists, scientists, experts of all kinds, human rights leaders, farmers, people on the frontlines—they are constantly talking to me about what they want to see in the world. For instance, in the West Bank, the dream of the walls falling down, of the occupation ending, of Palestine being free. 

So stay steady on the path, and don't lose sight of your imagination. Don't lose sight of that beacon we're all looking toward. Try to meet people from different places, hear different perspectives and lived experiences, read about history and different cultures. I see history as a source of imagination, too, because there's so much to learn about the ways people have lived in the past. 

We have to pause and reflect and remember the old ways so that we can ground ourselves and end the cycle of extraction and exploitation we're all trapped in. As artists, to create, we need to be consuming stories and the journeys of all types of people.

KUMI
Thank you, Yessenia. You make my job easier because you say such eloquent things. Let me just give three reflections. One, flowing from the last conversation, I would say that in the moment of history we find ourselves in, we must be saying to ourselves, pessimism is a luxury we simply cannot afford. The pessimism that justifiably emerges from our analysis, our observations, and our lived experiences can, must, and should be responded to by the optimism of our thought, our action, our creativity, and our sense of courage. 

We must not lie to ourselves. The moment that we find ourselves in and moving forward is going to be one where we are all going to need to summon levels of courage, an imagination that we've never seen before.

The second reflection is that, quite often, people who find themselves in leadership, in movements, in activations, and so on sometimes end up making a wrong assumption because the starting point is how people are oppressed, marginalized, repressed, and abused. I've seen that we imagine that people have less agency because of all the horrible things that have happened to them than in reality they still have.

So if we are going to prosper in this moment, we have to be thinking about multiple pathways by which people can participate because participation on a scale that we've never seen before is going to be needed to push those in power, both corporate power and governmental power, to act as fast as the situation calls for. There's another reason why we need participation. We are facing a global mental health crisis. Right now, we have eco-anxiety, climate anxiety, the rise of fascism, and much more. And in this context, participation is going to be one of the most powerful antidotes to despair. We need to be meeting people where they are.

If you're an arts teacher, you might be able to draft a constitution for the functioning of the organization you are working on, but why make an arts teacher do that? Let the arts teacher work with kids in a community and draw murals. Let her have joy. And that's the third point. 

We have to make sure that we do not project an image that activism is such a dread. We have to show that, in fact, activism will give you some of the best friendships you'll ever have. Activism gives your life meaning and helps with your mental health. Activism and artivism help creative expression in a way that actually lifts you up and keeps you in a positive state. We have to say to ourselves that activism and artivism are sexy. They are engaging. They are good.

If we want to make sure that arts and culture have a place and enjoy their full impact, we must realistically say that harnessing the power of arts and culture on its own will not deliver salvation from the climate crisis. However, failing to mobilize the power of arts and culture almost guarantees that we will fail. And that's why we have to see the arts and culture as a movement. And that's why I have been putting a lot of my time over the last three years since our son passed away in building the global energizing artivism movement.

BOBBY
Thank you so much for those responses. It's a reminder that our histories don't unfold in isolation and that amid these ongoing crises, we have no choice but to remain optimists. And the revolution is sexy. The revolution is beautiful, and I'm looking forward to dancing once we get there.

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