The North Carolina Sunrise Movement hosted a discussion workshop in conjunction with St. Anthony Hall, the co-ed arts and literary fraternity, to find the intersection of climate change art and advocacy for Earth Day.
First-year Rachel Maunus is the hub coordinator for the town of Chapel Hill’s Sunrise Movement group.
“Sunrise Movement is a movement of young people who are working to stop climate change and create jobs in the process,” Maunus said. “What that looks like, is pushing the Green New Deal and the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge.”
The workshop the group hosted at St. Anthony Hall’s house was a place for conversation about mitigating climate change and the impact of artistic creations on raising awareness for environmental issues.
“A lot of what we’re doing here is more having discussions about what role art plays now and what role it can play in social justice spaces,” Maunus said.
Nora Knapp, senior and St. Anthony Hall sibling, said the platform provides a unique opportunity to bring greater proximity to a seemingly intractable problem.
“It’s kind of hard to wrap my head around the fact that climate change is such a serious issue,” Knapp said. “It’s easy to just kind of feel numb about it and accept it. But I think art is a way of really bringing out emotions and making you feel things in a really deep, real way that just statistics and stuff doesn’t.”
The gallery was comprised of photographs, paintings, poetry and songs that spread the word about group advocacy or emphasized a connection with nature individually.
“A lot of what Sunrise Movement does is based in storytelling, so the idea that we’re a movement of people from every walk of life and that the only way that we’re going to be able to use that to our advantage and understand each other is through storytelling and being able to tell how — to have each person tell how climate change has affected them and what drives them to act,” Maunus said.
