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“When I try to do things, I have to take it out to the streets,” says Palestinian-born creative director of The Herds, Amir Nizar Zuabi. With his life-sized animal puppets that have made their way across the globe representing nature’s struggle, Climate Curious caught up with Nizar on what he has planned for London Climate Action Week, as well as what brought him to the project in the first place.
Created by TEDxLondon
Executive produced by Josie Colter
Produced by Ben Beheshty
Curated by Deesha Chandra
Hosted by Maryam Pasha and Ben Hurst
Communications by Tara Cooper and Issey Gladston
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[00:00:00] – Introduction
[00:00:48] – Journey to Detroit
[00:01:13] Meeting an Inspiring Speaker
[00:02:29] Introducing Amir Zubi and Little Amal
[00:03:26] The Herds Project: Puppets on a Global Journey
[00:04:51] Challenges of Creating Public Art
[00:08:01] Theatre as a Tool for Community Building
[00:09:01] Amir Zubi’s Journey from Palestine to London
[00:10:26] The power of honest storytelling
[00:12:32] From Ramah to the royal court
[00:18:19] Performing in Hebron and Paris
[00:19:46] The importance of community engagement
[00:21:17] The political roots of climate issues
[00:23:19] The role of art and culture in the climate movement
[00:25:04] Challenges and skepticism in climate action
[00:29:35] Personal reflections and impact
[00:34:56] Upcoming events and how to get involved
[00:38:33] Final thoughts
[00:00:00] Introduction
[00:00:00] Nizar Zuabi: I am like a yoyo emotionally with my relationship to the country that’s hosting me very generously. And I’m not ashamed that I’m like yoyo. I don’t understand the kind of, yeah, maybe I go, no. We’re [00:00:15] given an amazing opportunity to feel something, to care about, something, to advocate for something.
[00:00:21] Ben Hurst: This is Climate Curious, the podcast for people who are bored, scared.
[00:00:25] Ben Hurst: or confused by climate change.
[00:00:28] Maryam Pasha: I’m Maryam Pasha, the director and [00:00:30] curator at Telex London, and the co-host of this podcast alongside the amazing Ben. Hi,
[00:00:34] Ben Hurst: I’m Ben Hurst, activist and advocate exploring what positive masculinities can look like and self-confessed climate norming. [00:00:45]
[00:00:45] Maryam Pasha: So you know that about.
[00:00:48] Journey to Detroit
[00:00:48] Maryam Pasha: About two and a half years ago I went to Detroit. Mm-hmm. For Ted Countdown. Yeah. I was working with some of the speakers and me, I get to be in rehearsals and normally rehearsals are a bit stressful ’cause you, you know, it’s [00:01:00] like the moment in which it shows whether your speakers gonna, has done their work or not.
[00:01:04] Maryam Pasha: Anyway,
[00:01:04] Ben Hurst: everybody’s having an existential crisis. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
[00:01:06] Maryam Pasha: You’ve been in rehearsal. You know, I’ve been, so I went early. I had many speakers or whatever it was.
[00:01:13] Meeting an inspiring speaker
[00:01:13] Maryam Pasha: I was there for a long time and I saw a speaker speak who wasn’t one that I had worked with.
[00:01:17] Maryam Pasha: Mm-hmm.
[00:01:18] Maryam Pasha: And I was that person in the audience, doubtful,
[00:01:22] Maryam Pasha: who would just questioning
[00:01:24] Maryam Pasha: in tears.
[00:01:25] Maryam Pasha: Like just saying, oh really? I was sitting. There’s an empty theater. [00:01:30] There’s like five other 10 coaches there in the front. I’m in the back like a loser, just like in tears. You pin being like, no one look at me because I was so moved by this. I had all the feelings. [00:01:45] Mm-hmm. Um. And so then it’s incredible to me that fast forward two and a half years,
[00:01:51] Ben Hurst: we are good friends.
[00:01:52] Ben Hurst: We’re good friends. Oh, were you the speaker?
[00:01:54] Maryam Pasha: Yes.
[00:01:55] Ben Hurst: A plot twist. A plot twist. Didn’t even like plot twist. And Ben [00:02:00] also
[00:02:00] Maryam Pasha: knows this about me. Ben also knows this about me that I will, will make people be friends with me because I’ve done it to you and now I’ve done it to our guests this week as well. So I’m just.
[00:02:11] Maryam Pasha: Thrilled that we get to talk about the idea [00:02:15] that you presented at Ted. It was more than an idea then, but for us it felt like an incredible vision. Mm-hmm. And now it’s coming to life and I’m thrilled. And now that, let me actually tell people who, okay. Right, right, right.
[00:02:27] Ben Hurst: Do the do the
[00:02:29] Introducing Amir Zubi and Little Amal
[00:02:29] Maryam Pasha: Amir [00:02:30] Zubi is an award-winning theater writer and director and founding artistic director of the Walk Productions.
[00:02:37] Maryam Pasha: You will best know the walk productions for. One of the last pieces they did, which was a project known as Little [00:02:45] Amal, a 12 foot puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee child. That became like a global symbol of human rights, of empathy, of humanity, and, and she has walked all around the world. She’s met the Pope, not a current Pope, [00:03:00] obviously.
[00:03:00] Maryam Pasha: I was gonna say our previous Pope. Yeah. And so Nazar is here to tell us about his latest project, which is happening as we speak. Are you excited?
[00:03:10] Ben Hurst: We’re in the throes. We’re I am. I am excited. I just mainly, I just wanna [00:03:15] know, are you tired? You must be shattered, mate. I’m pretty tired.
[00:03:19] Maryam Pasha: Right,
[00:03:20] Nizar Zuabi: right.
[00:03:20] Ben Hurst: Shattered
[00:03:20] Nizar Zuabi: is a very good expression.
[00:03:21] Nizar Zuabi: Right.
[00:03:22] Maryam Pasha: Tell us, tell us why you might be tired. What are you in the middle of?
[00:03:26] The Herds project: puppets on a global journey
[00:03:26] Nizar Zuabi: Six weeks ago now? Seven weeks ago we started, [00:03:30] um, a very big project that. We started in Kinshasa. Mm-hmm. Um, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and it basically, it’s taking a big herd of wildlife from. The Congo [00:03:45] Rain Basin.
[00:03:45] Nizar Zuabi: Mm-hmm. Uh, all the way to the Arctic Circle, but the wildlife is not real. ’cause that is frowned upon. So they’re Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Puppet animals. Uh, and we’re creating big artistic public arts, big interactions [00:04:00] in city centers. The idea is that nature comes crashing into us. It’s an alarm bell. But a beautiful alarm bell.
[00:04:06] Nizar Zuabi: Mm-hmm. It’s not here to make us despair, but it’s here to make us scare. Mm-hmm. Or to make us. Rethink our [00:04:15] stance, and we’ve been doing this now, we’ve done events in Kinshasa, in Lagos, in Dakar, in Casablanca, Abba, and Marakesh, and I’m now in London as the animals [00:04:30] are crossing the sea, I get a couple of days to see my family.
[00:04:33] Ben Hurst: Right. Which is also important. Which is important. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also valuable.
[00:04:37] Maryam Pasha: So this project is called the Herds. What is the size of this herd? Tell us a bit about it.
[00:04:41] Nizar Zuabi: Well, the herd keeps on changing. It’s not a [00:04:45] constant thing. It changes mainly based on the amount of participants we have in each city.
[00:04:50] Nizar Zuabi: Okay.
[00:04:51] Challenges of creating public art
[00:04:51] Nizar Zuabi: The herd is fueled and is propelled in the cities by the local participants, which is, I think the, for me, kind of as a vain artist, and we are all vain artists, you kind of go, I’m gonna create these amazing artistic. Uh, events, but one of the most moving things now doing it for almost two months is actually going to a city, training a big number of people, and then.
[00:05:15] Nizar Zuabi: Having these people walk the herds through their own neighborhoods, through their city. You know, the citizens become agents of something and so the size of the herd depends very much on, but we’re talking about a lot of animals. Yeah. [00:05:30] Um,
[00:05:30] Maryam Pasha: maybe it’s harder for us to imagine is these are life size. Right.
[00:05:35] Ben Hurst: Really. Like a, like a, an elephant, a life-sized elephant.
[00:05:39] Nizar Zuabi: The elephants, the giraffes keep on giving us trouble because they don’t fit into most places. Right. You can’t [00:05:45] transport them. So I had last week, last week, yeah, last week. I had the ridiculous. Literally ridiculous moment of walking around the SBA of robots in circles.
[00:05:56] Nizar Zuabi: In circles for an hour and something with my technical crew [00:06:00] trying to see how a giraffe can actually walk through the sba. And eventually we just gave up. ’cause the SBA was not designed for giraffes to walk in. I was really pissed off, but we had to go, okay, there is no giraffe in this event, right? ’cause it’s impossible.
[00:06:14] Nizar Zuabi: [00:06:15] Lay it down
[00:06:15] Ben Hurst: and put it on
[00:06:16] Nizar Zuabi: wheels. Yeah. Carry it, carry it. Sleeping through. Yeah. Um, but so some, some of it becomes very funny. Mm-hmm. Like trying to fit a giraffe through a ca, um, through the small alleyways of a Moroccan souk. Yeah. [00:06:30] Tough. The premise is nature is invading our daily mundane rituals days.
[00:06:36] Nizar Zuabi: You kind of, you sit in a cafe and send me a a, an elephant runs through.
[00:06:40] Ben Hurst: Wow. Um, and so is the concept, is it like a, is it like they’re [00:06:45] visiting or is it like they are migrating? Are they run, are they trying to escape a climate crisis? Like what brings them to the, is there a narrative that’s running through it?
[00:06:53] Nizar Zuabi: The, the kind of the grain of it is one day. And the rainforests of [00:07:00] the Congo, a group of animals perked up, felt that something inherently is wrong. Mm-hmm. And started running. And as they run more and more animals, join them, join them. More and more animals are coming out and they, they’re running, they’re just invading our cities on [00:07:15] the way to safety.
[00:07:16] Maryam Pasha: Right.
[00:07:16] Nizar Zuabi: And safety will not be found. They’ll keep on going until they reach North Cap, which is the cliff at the end of Norway. Wow. Um, that’s the image we’re working with. Right. Again, in each city we’re co-creating [00:07:30] co-authoring artistic events with some of Europe and Africa’s best artists. So we are creating very specific interactions, but.
[00:07:39] Nizar Zuabi: Underneath all this, underneath these interactions, these events, the idea is they are [00:07:45] fleeing for life and they’re fleeing from us.
[00:07:47] Ben Hurst: Right. Do you feel like Noah’s ark without the boat?
[00:07:50] Nizar Zuabi: I feel like the pigeon in Noah’s story, I Right. Like the dove that goes back and forth. Yeah. Um. If anything, I’m a pigeon.[00:08:00]
[00:08:01] Theatre as a tool for community building
[00:08:01] Nizar Zuabi: I think that what I got interested in, in Little Al and subsequently in the herds is taking theater out to the streets and creating big public art events that are theatrical, that have a story, that are visceral, that [00:08:15] are physical, that are participatory. Mm-hmm. That are, mm-hmm. Relying on citizens to become part of them.
[00:08:22] Maryam Pasha: Mm.
[00:08:23] Nizar Zuabi: Because I, I kind of, I’m just, I stopped believing in, in my, my art form as [00:08:30] a thing that only exists in middle class, upper class rich circles where you go pay a hundred pounds to see a show for a ticket.
[00:08:39] Ben Hurst: Yeah.
[00:08:40] Nizar Zuabi: Where the people that look like me. And like you are not there around you. [00:08:45] Yeah. So this is,
[00:08:46] Maryam Pasha: this is, I have to, you have to tell this story please.
[00:08:48] Maryam Pasha: Because after like a year or so of knowing you, sorry, I asked you, I remember we were at this event, this. Networking event. And you and I are not great at networking, so we just, I’m rubbishing
[00:08:58] Nizar Zuabi: this way, not great. We, so we hang
[00:08:59] Maryam Pasha: out [00:09:00] together and talk to each other instead.
[00:09:01] Amir Zubi’s journey from Palestine to London
[00:09:01] Maryam Pasha: And um, I asked you, how on earth did a Palestinian playwright, an author get to the young Vick, get to London, get to New York, get to doing this?
[00:09:12] Maryam Pasha: How did you manage it? And you told me this great story.
[00:09:14] Nizar Zuabi: [00:09:15] You know, l Luck is the residue of design. That’s what they say. But I think luck is just luck. Sometimes Fortuna comes knocking.
[00:09:22] Maryam Pasha: Mm.
[00:09:23] Nizar Zuabi: I was a very young director. I was directing my first proper production in a small theater in Ramah when the second in [00:09:30] Ada broke and the second in Ada was very violent.
[00:09:33] Nizar Zuabi: Nothing compared to the genocide that’s going around. Mm-hmm. Today. And what’s happening today is on a completely. Level of its own, but at the time it was a war has started.
[00:09:43] Maryam Pasha: Mm.
[00:09:43] Nizar Zuabi: And it was quite [00:09:45] violent for the civic population at was violent. I was in the middle of rehearsals when all my actors left ’cause it became unsafe and the theater was closed.
[00:09:54] Nizar Zuabi: Um, I was 20, almost becoming 21 and like [00:10:00] Oh wow. Like most 21 years old, I was stupid and reckless. And I went, we’re opening the theater. We have to keep the theater open. Mm-hmm. And I did. I basically went, you either give me the keys or I crowbar the doors, but we’re opening the theater.
[00:10:13] Ben Hurst: Yeah.
[00:10:14] Nizar Zuabi: And I [00:10:15] invited everybody I knew and everybody that worked with me to come and spend time with me in the theater.
[00:10:19] Nizar Zuabi: And I went, come, we’ll spend time. We’ll write something, we’ll talk We’ll, but I can’t sit at home while this is happening. Right.
[00:10:26] The power of honest storytelling
[00:10:26] Nizar Zuabi: Um, and the first I. Results out of this experiment was a week later where we arranged, uh, some chairs on a stage and some, some of the actors that worked with me, some poets, some musicians that came and spent time with us, almost did the only thing we could do, which was share space together and talk about what we are going through.
[00:10:49] Nizar Zuabi: And the theater was jam packed. It was full like never before because everyone had the needs to become a community, had the need to be together in this really [00:11:00] weird war that we found ourselves in. Right. And as this finished, everybody told me. Are you doing another one next week? Can you do another one?
[00:11:07] Nizar Zuabi: We need this. So I did another one and I think after three or four I became ’cause vain artist, like we [00:11:15] said, I went, okay, I’m greedy. Can we, can we have some lights? Can we have a set? Can we start? Can we think of this as a narrative? Yeah. And within two or three evenings, it was structured like a theater show.
[00:11:25] Nizar Zuabi: And every time we’d churn up new materials, we’d. Think differently. I had two [00:11:30] rules in the rehearsal room. One is we don’t hate anyone. Anger is futile. It’s bo, it’s boring on stage. Mm-hmm. Uh, and we are not victims. We don’t whine. And the minute you take these two out of a very intense political situation, [00:11:45] humor comes in.
[00:11:46] Nizar Zuabi: Poetry comes in, right? Imagination is so very quickly, these. Evenings, these very simple evenings became more complicated theater shows, and I think they were mainly honest, which made them very powerful for our community. [00:12:00] Right, because there were a lot of expats, um, expats. There were a lot of foreign aid workers and.
[00:12:07] Nizar Zuabi: UN workers and Ramah. Ramala is the bureaucratic capital of Palestine. Mm-hmm. Uh, Jerusalem is the [00:12:15] heart and the capital, but Ramah is the B where the bureaucracy sits. I started doing one of the evenings with really bad sur titling that Idu. On the computer very quickly. Yep, yep. Yeah. Just so they have a way into who [00:12:30] we are.
[00:12:30] Nizar Zuabi: Yeah. That isn’t vilified.
[00:12:32] From Ramah to the royal court
[00:12:32] Nizar Zuabi: And a lot of them started coming and I think after seven events walking out of the theater, a curly heard woman full of good intention came up to me and said this shit. Go to London. You should take this to London. Wow. Sure. Great.
[00:12:47] Ben Hurst: Thanks for your input. Yeah,
[00:12:49] Nizar Zuabi: good advice. Yeah. It doesn’t work like this, unfortunately.
[00:12:52] Nizar Zuabi: And she said, no, no, this should go to London. I went, that’s really nice, but it doesn’t, that doesn’t work like this. Yeah. And she went, no, it [00:13:00] does. I’m Elise Dotson and I am the head of the international department in the Royal court. Wow. And I think three months later we were performing in the Royal Court with this piece.
[00:13:11] Nizar Zuabi: Wow. And this piece became. A piece that went everywhere, and I think it [00:13:15] was mainly because it was a real reaction, but an honest, simple reaction to something that it kind of became a show that went everywhere. Literally. We traveled for years and that’s how David Lan was just. [00:13:30] Starting his tenure in the Young Vic tenure, that became legendary in English theater because he took that place and turned it into ized.
[00:13:37] Nizar Zuabi: Yeah. One of the most interesting theaters in London, if not the most interesting at the time. He invited us to do a proper run. ’cause the [00:13:45] Royal Court run was quite a short one. And then we did a, and then our relationship was created and mm-hmm. He invited me to come and do more work for, for the, and we became very close, fast forward.
[00:13:56] Nizar Zuabi: When he was thinking of La Ma, when it was still a, [00:14:00] a vague idea. Mm. I was invited to take part and become kind of a, one of the people that helped shape it, and now we’re doing the herz together.
[00:14:09] Ben Hurst: How cool is that? That’s crazy. And I Do you know what I love about it? Like I. This is me [00:14:15] getting into my, like, pseudo artistic philosophy bag here, but I, I do feel like theater isn’t really theater unless it’s about community.
[00:14:23] Ben Hurst: Like it doesn’t exist in isolation. It only exists between people. And it is like the, in [00:14:30] some cases, like the, the transfer of that energy of creative energy between an audience and, and performers or including audience as performers has your work. Always carried that like undertone of needing [00:14:45] audience to, to be a part of what’s generated.
[00:14:47] Ben Hurst: Or
[00:14:48] Nizar Zuabi: for me, there is something be really marvelous about the fact that the light. Come down and there’s a community, right? A community is created because there’s a group of people consuming a story. [00:15:00] Yeah. Um, and that’s how communities are shaped throughout history. Mm-hmm. Uh, communities are their story.
[00:15:06] Nizar Zuabi: Mm-hmm. Theater is immediate. You, it’s an immediate community maker. Mm-hmm. Community group. Society, you know, community is a, is a, is a [00:15:15] problematic word in White England because it means poor people,
[00:15:19] Maryam Pasha: right?
[00:15:19] Nizar Zuabi: Um, so I’m just going, when I say community, I don’t mean black and brown people. I mean a group of people, right?
[00:15:25] Nizar Zuabi: All creeds, all colors, all shapes. All genders, so [00:15:30] kind of taking away the community as poor people. The minute lights come down and there’s a story consumed, there’s a community created. There’s a society that starts to take shape doing theater. And I am a political [00:15:45] creature, and I’ve been in this country for three years.
[00:15:48] Nizar Zuabi: I’m 48, so most of my life was spent in Palestine creating theater that matters for people who live in Palestine. Yeah, I was very lucky that a lot of the theater I created in [00:16:00] Palestine. Was also, uh, invited or deemed important internationally. And we toured a lot and I’m very proud of these years where I took shows from Palestine and told a different story about my home country.
[00:16:13] Maryam Pasha: Mm.
[00:16:13] Nizar Zuabi: Um, from what is [00:16:15] usually the vilified Islamophobic version, our reality. Right. And for many years, that’s what I did. Hmm. In many, when you’re working in Palestine, there’s always a vicinity. There’s always a closeness. ’cause theater is not [00:16:30] this, you know, there is no, the National Theater a big right. I, I worked for years in the Palestinian National Theater.
[00:16:37] Nizar Zuabi: It’s not a national and it’s not a, you know, um, you can, you can argue if it’s a theater Yeah. But it’s a place where things happen. Yeah. Uh, [00:16:45] it’s live, it’s alive. It’s. Kicking, it’s hungry. And for me that’s more important and more sexy than the big, rich establishments. Right? The rich establishments are great.
[00:16:55] Nizar Zuabi: We don’t have the abilities, so something else kicks in and this something is [00:17:00] raw and very close to the surface. Mm-hmm. I, I told this recently to, to David actually, ’cause we were talking and I went, one of the biggest, kind of the biggest revolutions I have, the revelations revolutions, was I was [00:17:15] performing a piece by our.
[00:17:16] Nizar Zuabi: Incredible poet called UD ish, who’s probably one of the most important poets of the 20th century. Mm. And I’m saying this with, with no patriotism to his, to a fellow Palestinian Right. But [00:17:30] with sheer envy of, of the ability of a wordsmith. Mm-hmm. Uh, to write on that level. But I took a poem he wrote and adapted it into a play, and it toured quite a lot.
[00:17:40] Nizar Zuabi: And it opened, uh, the Edinburgh Festival in, and [00:17:45] it. Toured all over. And it also performed in the Bo Al, which is um, probably one of the most important theaters at the time, led by Peter Brook, the legendary mm-hmm. English director that created this very important theater in [00:18:00] research center in Paris. So the Boof Al was a, was at the time a holy grail for any theater lover in the world performing.
[00:18:07] Nizar Zuabi: There was the peak of. Aspirations for a theater maker and we performed RIA there [00:18:15] to great success audience. Loved it. Got great reviews. Great.
[00:18:19] Performing in Hebron and Paris
[00:18:19] Nizar Zuabi: A week later, I performed Ria, the same piece in a makeshift garage in Hera.
[00:18:25] Maryam Pasha: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:26] Nizar Zuabi: And that was one of the most important performances I did. Theatrically [00:18:30] garage.
[00:18:32] Nizar Zuabi: And literally the, when I say garage, I mean garage. I mean a place where they repair shops. We had to take the cars out and put a tar pole in on greasy floor in order to perform there. Right? Um, but what was [00:18:45] stunning to me was that the Shik Parisians and the boof is. The very, very sophisticated Parisians and the community in Hebron, one of the harshest places in Palestine, in the West Bank, reacted to the show [00:19:00] exactly in the same places, exactly the same way.
[00:19:02] Nizar Zuabi: The big difference is when the show ended in Hebron. 250 people just walked on stage to hug the performances and try and feed them by force. Literally, there was an [00:19:15] argument of, you’re coming to my house, you’re my guest tonight. Um, but it was, it was life changing for me. Because you go, yeah. Okay. So you performed in the most important theater in the world.
[00:19:25] Nizar Zuabi: At the end of the day, it’s the same in, it’s the same. It’s it’s the same, it’s the [00:19:30] same dialogue with the audience. Yeah. Uh, if it’s accurate. And that was a, an important moment for me. ’cause it kind of, it, it made me confront a bit of my own vanity. Yeah. I go, I want to be the successful artist. I want to, I want to talk with the [00:19:45] audiences in the west.
[00:19:45] Nizar Zuabi: I want to tell them.
[00:19:46] The importance of community engagement
[00:19:46] Nizar Zuabi: But actually, when you’re talking to your own community, there’s depth there that is crucial. And I’m not living in Palestine for the last three years. Complicated as it is, comes with a price. So I’m trying to keep the honesty of the engagement. When I try to do things, one of the things for me is to take it out to the streets, to kind of rep the appearance of culture.
[00:20:07] Nizar Zuabi: ’cause there’s one word I hate in English. It’s culture, culture, culture. Yeah.
[00:20:13] Maryam Pasha: So this is, this is, um, a question I have for [00:20:15] you is the herds is climate, it’s nature, it’s biodiversity, it’s migration, it’s many, many puppets. It’s a different scale. Why this topic and why in this way?
[00:20:27] Nizar Zuabi: This topic is very simple.
[00:20:28] Nizar Zuabi: When we were walking with [00:20:30] Amal, a lot of the refugees came from the um, and when you talk with them, they don’t, it’s not theoretical. It’s not the Detroit gang that hangs around TED Conference talking in theory about [00:20:45] climate change. Yes, these are people that are. Fleeing because of climate change. Mm-hmm.
[00:20:49] Nizar Zuabi: It happened to them.
[00:20:49] Maryam Pasha: Yes.
[00:20:50] Nizar Zuabi: Um, and there’s millions of them.
[00:20:52] Maryam Pasha: Yes.
[00:20:52] Nizar Zuabi: It’s not once you leave affluent Europe or affluent America where it’s still, you can, in America, you can argue if. [00:21:00] LA burning is climate change or just bad weather? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, when everybody knows it’s not just bad weather. Yeah. But, but when rivers are disappearing and forests are becoming deserts and it’s happening to your [00:21:15] home, to your, um, it’s real.
[00:21:17] The political roots of climate issues
[00:21:17] Nizar Zuabi: Mm. And talking to quite a lot of these people, you go, okay, there’s an underlying, I’m I, I come from a very political place. There’s an underlying political situation that affects everyone. Mm. It affects tr time in [00:21:30] Norway and it affects Kinshasa and it’s visible in both. Mm-hmm. You know, in tr time, you know, climate change is happening because the ice caps are melting.
[00:21:39] Nizar Zuabi: Mm-hmm. In Kinshasa, you know, that. Climate change is real because the floods are worse [00:21:45] every year, and it’s because of erosion of ground. It’s because forests are disappearing, you know?
[00:21:49] Ben Hurst: Right.
[00:21:50] Nizar Zuabi: These are not theories anymore. Mm-hmm. Let me be political and blunt, and the root cause of both of them is the same root cause of what’s keeping a war in Palestine alive.
[00:21:59] Nizar Zuabi: Right. [00:22:00] Um, it’s the same corporates, it’s the same big corporations, it’s the same duality of oil. Oil, money and corruption and lobbies and armed dealers that are keeping this system. Mm. And for me it’s the [00:22:15] same. It’s, it’s almost the same. Argument is the same. So it is personal for me. Yeah. Obviously I, you know, you, you also know my children.
[00:22:23] Nizar Zuabi: I’ve, I’m a father of two young children and sometimes when I talk to Nuri, he goes, literally, recently he went, yeah, but you know, for us it’s gonna [00:22:30] be different. Who knows how it’s gonna be in 50 years? And I, I, I mean, in what way? Technology and he goes, dad, technology, air. I dunno if we can breathe in 50 years.
[00:22:41] Nizar Zuabi: Mm. And when your son says this to you, you kind of go, okay, [00:22:45] can we cut the Lala land? Can we cut the rad? Can we stop talking about it and do something? And I can only do what I do, which is theater. I wish I could be a very efficient businessman that can create, but I’m a storyteller [00:23:00] and that’s my tools.
[00:23:01] Nizar Zuabi: So I limited as they are, but these are my tools.
[00:23:05] Maryam Pasha: Hmm.
[00:23:06] Nizar Zuabi: And I do believe they make a small difference. And the small difference is, again, I think that the minute a community is listening to a story, there’s a community, and I think that’s [00:23:15] a commodity that is very, very powerful. Used correctly.
[00:23:19] Maryam Pasha: Hmm.
[00:23:19] The role of art and culture in the climate movement
[00:23:19] Maryam Pasha: Well, I wanna talk about impact.
[00:23:23] Maryam Pasha: I know you hate that word. I wanna talk about the climate movement. I wanna talk about culture, all things [00:23:30] that are like annoying to talk about. But I wanna, I wanna bring us here because I think you and I have talked about this. I’ve talked about this with anyone who will listen. There is a resistance to acknowledge the importance of things like this theater culture [00:23:45] in the climate movement, and yet.
[00:23:47] Maryam Pasha: I think anyone who spends five seconds interacting with this project, whether in person or digitally or through listening to this, feels something immediately and they could read 200 pages of an [00:24:00] I-I-P-C-C report and not know what the hell’s going on, coming at it from the arts side, for someone who’s skeptical about the importance of culture, art, et cetera, in addressing the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis nature, what do you say?
[00:24:14] Nizar Zuabi: Art is [00:24:15] what creates the story that we live by. Art is what art is, what changes the narrative slowly for a culture, I think that a lot of the skepticism, and I’ll be shooting in all directions again, a lot of the skepticism towards art and culture in the, [00:24:30] in the climate movement is because the climate movement is not about climate.
[00:24:34] Nizar Zuabi: It’s about money. It’s about. Green economy, but green economy is still pollutive a lot of the kind of the stance of, oh yeah, it’s hard. It [00:24:45] doesn’t really matter, is because they can’t make a dollar. Mm. Which is something I’m encountering all the time. People go, yeah, how can you commoditize this? Right? And you go, I don’t want to com.
[00:24:53] Nizar Zuabi: It’s not a commodity I’m trying to create. You know, I work on this a lot
[00:24:57] Maryam Pasha: and I, and I’m constantly, and I’m [00:25:00] basically asking you to gimme my arguments next time. I’m in an argument on this, by the way.
[00:25:04] Challenges and skepticism in climate action
[00:25:04] Maryam Pasha: I hear the exact same argument when it comes to, um, climate justice involving. Indigenous communities Sure.
[00:25:13] Maryam Pasha: Learn. You know, because you can’t
[00:25:14] Nizar Zuabi: make [00:25:15] money off indigenous communities.
[00:25:16] Maryam Pasha: Right. All of this. But this is same thing. We all have time.
[00:25:19] Ben Hurst: It’s not, it’s not the most urgent.
[00:25:20] Maryam Pasha: The most urgent thing is getting that carbon out of the atmosphere. Everything else is secondary. And I’m curious ’cause I find that, and in infuriating [00:25:30] for many reasons, we
[00:25:31] Nizar Zuabi: just saw.
[00:25:32] Nizar Zuabi: A madman take the steering wheel. Mm-hmm. Uh, and you saw that 90% of the people that talked about it as the most urgent thing went, actually, it’s not that urgent anymore. We can’t make money right now. Bye-bye. [00:25:45] Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I think it’s time that we call them, call them what they are. Call them a spade as a spade, or in this case.
[00:25:52] Nizar Zuabi: Something else. Yeah. Um,
[00:25:54] Maryam Pasha: so, okay. I agree with you.
[00:25:55] Nizar Zuabi: For the good people that don’t understand why culture is important, I [00:26:00] go, everything you believe in was created by the culture you, you live in. I come from this historical land I. Very, very problematic. But in the accumulation of history and story, and there’s a reason why these [00:26:15] are the same words.
[00:26:16] Nizar Zuabi: Mm-hmm. My land is maybe the most important and the leader of the world. ’cause we have contributed more mythology, good or bad mythology. Right. You one can argue that the one God, one God idea is not brilliant, but we have created a [00:26:30] lot of mythology on that tiny mm-hmm. Stretch of nothing between the sea and the desert.
[00:26:36] Nizar Zuabi: That. Factory of history. That factory of story is what people fight for, live and die for. Not only in my [00:26:45] land, but in Nigeria, in churches where you walk into a church in Nigeria and you go, that’s Belem. I buy bread in Bethlehem. I eat. That’s where my rest, my favorite falafel places. Yeah. I think that the, the kind of, the assumption that culture [00:27:00] is not really important doesn’t, culture is who we are really, and culture is cumulative.
[00:27:08] Nizar Zuabi: It takes time. It’s not immediate. Right? The urgent argument, it’s not urgent. Nothing is urgent and [00:27:15] everything is. Telling the story from a different perspective. Making people care is urgent ’cause you need them. You need them to become your partners, to lead a movement, to take part. If you tell me again about 1.5 [00:27:30] degrees, and we’ve been saying it for years, the climate movement has been talking about these things for years and about carbon and people don’t care.
[00:27:37] Nizar Zuabi: Uh, science is like 10. Yeah, it’s real. It’s real. You can stand on it. Everything you throw on [00:27:45] it bounces back. It doesn’t echo, it doesn’t vibrate. Mm. Because it’s fact. Mm. And facts like we know is the easiest thing to manipulate a story is harder to manipulate than a fact and emotion is, is easier to create, [00:28:00] but once it’s in you, it’s a belief system.
[00:28:02] Nizar Zuabi: You care about something. It becomes a very, very, very committed thing. A fact, you know, you don’t know Google it. Mm-hmm. We don’t really care about these things. The science only takes us that far. [00:28:15] It’s true. And if you’re not an American president, you know it’s true. Um. But it only goes that far. Yeah.
[00:28:23] Maryam Pasha: For me, it’s the both end of it.
[00:28:24] Maryam Pasha: You know, we’ve got these statistics that say like 86% of people know climate change is real. They [00:28:30] want their governments to do more, et cetera, et cetera. And yet we’re still stuck here. And I think it’s because the both end, you need the science because you need, that’s like half the picture. Mm-hmm. And then the other half the picture is.
[00:28:41] Maryam Pasha: Culture, feeling emotion. The things that actually move people [00:28:45] beyond the Yes. I know
[00:28:46] Nizar Zuabi: once Spielberg movie changed our relationship with the sea forever, right? Mm-hmm. It takes one genius, not me. I’m not portraying, I’m not for second thinking that the herds will change, but it takes [00:29:00] one genius to create a complete.
[00:29:03] Nizar Zuabi: A narrative shift, relationship shift with, um, with a topic. With subject. With material. Right. For years, our generation would walk into the sea going, Hmm, [00:29:15] uh oh. Because of, yeah. Because of sharks.
[00:29:20] Ben Hurst: Because of jaws for years. Yeah.
[00:29:22] Nizar Zuabi: That change and, and that changes change. Yeah. Yeah. And I think sometimes we forget the effect, the, the real, the [00:29:30] huge effect that stories can have on us even in our modern life.
[00:29:34] Maryam Pasha: Mm mm
[00:29:34] Nizar Zuabi: Um,
[00:29:35] Personal reflections and impact
[00:29:35] Maryam Pasha: if there is someone listening who is feeling like they wanna have impact, they wanna do something in the world, they wanna, and they wanna do that through the media of. [00:29:45] Whatever that might be for them. I’ve heard you talk beautifully about the idea of impact. How can someone think about that, that doesn’t feel overwhelming and that doesn’t stifle them?
[00:29:55] Nizar Zuabi: Y you know, again, I think, and that’s why I’m, I’m, um, [00:30:00] conflicted about the word impact because obviously we immediately go to, we take out our measuring tools. Men love these tools and we start comparing what did who and how can, and you go, not everything is measurable. Mm-hmm. The seismic [00:30:15] movements of the soul that are just as big as the tectonic plate movements, uh, are not completely measurable.
[00:30:21] Nizar Zuabi: The change of your attitude towards something. Is a long process and an immediate thing, and it’s not totally measurable.
[00:30:29] Maryam Pasha: Yeah.
[00:30:29] Nizar Zuabi: [00:30:30] If you go, I don’t know if what I’m doing has any impact, you’re already asking a good question. It means you want to affect the world, hopefully positively.
[00:30:40] Maryam Pasha: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:40] Nizar Zuabi: Right. Um, that’s already.
[00:30:42] Nizar Zuabi: Huge.
[00:30:43] Maryam Pasha: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:43] Nizar Zuabi: When I’m asked, what is the [00:30:45] impact of the thing you do, I go, I don’t know. I hope it has some impact. I’m doing it honestly, to try and touch people. Yeah. To try and move people. Can I tell you for certain that I did? I’ll be lying. I [00:31:00] don’t know. Mm-hmm. I can only judge according to their reactions to me, and in a way I’m creating energy and I hope this energy turns into something else bigger than.
[00:31:10] Nizar Zuabi: What I created, um, and I think this is true, when [00:31:15] my 11-year-old Tamara asks me, dad, what can I do? And I go, you can do a lot of things. You can read about it, learn about it, care about it, find one thing that you’re interested in. And it could be birds in your backyard, [00:31:30] or it could be, I’m going to now dedicate my life for ocean preservation.
[00:31:35] Nizar Zuabi: Um, or it could be, I’m really, really, really, really, really committed to carbon and I’m gonna donate this sum of money to. [00:31:45] This cause every, we have many, many ways to affect the world. The one thing that we don’t have the luxury of is being indifferent. And the minute the stance is I care and I wanna do something, it’s great.
[00:31:58] Nizar Zuabi: Fail, do a bad [00:32:00] job in doing something, we’re. I’m, you know, I’m a Palestinian. Um, I, I complete, I’m a complete failure when it comes to Gaza. Everything I tried did not stop the war and everything I try feels like a vain attempt to be heard, uh, [00:32:15] in, in, um, but I’m still trying. I want, I’m, I’m agonizing about my lack.
[00:32:21] Nizar Zuabi: Um, I’m agonizing about the fact that I’m doing a climate. Related project when I should be leaving everything and going to [00:32:30] volunteer, uh, in a hospital in Gaza. And there’s many reasons why I can’t or I can’t. And there’s always reasons. Mm-hmm. But at the end of the day, I care. And the fact that you care is a big part of the equation.
[00:32:42] Nizar Zuabi: The minute people become indifferent, we [00:32:45] lost them. It’s like love. Mm-hmm. You can hate your partner. There’s still a chance the minute you’re indifferent to your partner, that’s it. Go separate. Live better lives alone. You can fight, you can argue, you can feel like a failure. You can hate them for a [00:33:00] day, and you love them for the next, but there’s, there’s energy there that is worth fighting for.
[00:33:07] Nizar Zuabi: Um, and I think our relationship with the world is the same. I am, I’m, Mariam knows me a bit. I’m like [00:33:15] this. Uh, with my relationship to this place, to the country that’s hosting me very generously. That
[00:33:21] Ben Hurst: was up. Sorry for
[00:33:22] Nizar Zuabi: listening down. Yeah, that was up and down. Gesticulation. Yeah, I’m, I’m, I’m like a yoyo [00:33:30] emotionally, especially in this the last two years, but also before, and I’m not ashamed that I’m like a, I care, I wanna be passionate about things.
[00:33:37] Nizar Zuabi: I don’t understand the kind of, yeah, maybe I. I go, no. We’re given an amazing opportunity [00:33:45] to feel something to care about. Something to advocate for something. Yeah. Yes, it is overwhelming. Get over yourself. I’m sorry, I’m kind of, but you’re overwhelmed. Snap out of it. Go have a walk.
[00:33:57] Maryam Pasha: Ground yourself. Think how,
[00:33:58] Nizar Zuabi: yeah.
[00:33:58] Nizar Zuabi: Think how you can be useful [00:34:00] to somebody else and. Kind of leave yourself. ’cause sometimes we get overwhelmed by us. It’s me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. And I go, yeah, I’m you, you, you, you. Great. Take that energy. Put it into go help. [00:34:15] Help a local homeless shelter. It doesn’t need to be climate, it doesn’t need to be Palestine.
[00:34:21] Nizar Zuabi: It needs to be you being part of a bigger tissue
[00:34:24] Maryam Pasha: mm-hmm. Of
[00:34:25] Nizar Zuabi: life. And if you care about the homeless people, very quickly you’ll, [00:34:30] I hope you’ll care about Palestine. Black Lives Matter. Yeah. Climate and, and gender rights. Mm-hmm. Hmm. I think it’s all about, for me, they’re all connected and they’re all about the same thing.
[00:34:41] Nizar Zuabi: It is, how do I become a compassionate, [00:34:45] useful, meaningful human being to my fellow human beings?
[00:34:49] Ben Hurst: I really like that. I, I dunno what’s been going on with these episodes recently. I feel like I’m just sitting in lack of philosophy. Lecture. Yeah.
[00:34:56] Upcoming events and how to get involved
[00:34:56] Maryam Pasha: No, I mean, I, yeah, no, you know, no, I, [00:35:00] seeing that audience, so about that, uh, the Herdz is coming to the UK is coming all across Europe.
[00:35:06] Maryam Pasha: So I would say, please go to the herds.org and check out the route. All the dates are listed, but you’re coming to [00:35:15] the uk, you’re gonna be in London from the 27th to the 29th of June and Manchester and the vicinity from the third to the 5th of July. Can you give us some snippets of what people can expect?
[00:35:28] Maryam Pasha: We,
[00:35:28] Nizar Zuabi: you, you, we are [00:35:30] gonna stampede across Central London. Mm-hmm. Um, we’re gonna create big events here. Uh, go to the website, see where they’re happening, make sure you’re there. ’cause we’re only gonna do this once. Mm-hmm. We are in different parts of London.
[00:35:44] Maryam Pasha: Yes,
[00:35:44] Nizar Zuabi: [00:35:45] some of the events are very big, some of them are more intimate.
[00:35:48] Nizar Zuabi: Um, there’s something that will fit your. Vicinity somehow. Mm-hmm. But we’re gonna be, you know, it is, it is what it like it is. It’s a [00:36:00] herd invading London. We’re gonna be in multiple locations, uh, working with different partners across route. It’s gonna be something that you’ll only be able to see once.
[00:36:10] Nizar Zuabi: Mm-hmm. And yes, you can see the videos we create on Instagram. [00:36:15] They are fantastic and our social media creators. Incredibly talented, but it’s not the same like having a. A giraffe stampede near you or having to move out of the way for a Kudu. Mm-hmm. So yeah, [00:36:30] go to the website, see what they are. We’re in Manchester, we’re opening the Manchester Festival and we have events in Manchester and in Greater Manchester.
[00:36:38] Nizar Zuabi: Look at the website. You might be in a vacation in southern Spain and suddenly bump into it. So you might, you might catch him. [00:36:45] Yeah. And I
[00:36:45] Maryam Pasha: would say also. On the website, if you check under the education tab, there are these incredible education packs you’ve built for schools where you know people can delve into the habitats and the animals in five or six different locations.
[00:36:59] Maryam Pasha: We spent, [00:37:00] because my friends and I are very, very cool. We spent Easter because in addition to education, you’ve actually, which is incredible, the team has put together the designs for making some of these puppets. So we made a Pangolin, [00:37:15] um, over Easter, and I have to tell you, I adore it. Out of what? Out of outboard cardboards.
[00:37:22] Maryam Pasha: And we collected cereal boxes and things for, for a week and we all sat together and we did, and we made a Pangolin and. [00:37:30] It is just the most incredible thing to see it come to life. And so if you wanna have a bit of that herds magic in your life before you, they arrive in your city, I kind of encourage you to do that.
[00:37:41] Maryam Pasha: I kind of can’t wait to go make myself a hedgehog next.
[00:37:44] Nizar Zuabi: Yeah. And [00:37:45] we, and we’ve got. City participation everywhere. So kind of look at the website, see how you can get involved. You can come and train with us and become a puppeteer.
[00:37:54] Maryam Pasha: How fun. Have fun, right?
[00:37:55] Ben Hurst: How muscles it like a, an odd bark bad. I’m not
[00:37:58] Maryam Pasha: gonna be a puppeteer
[00:37:59] Ben Hurst: in case [00:38:00] anybody’s wondering.
[00:38:00] Ben Hurst: ’cause I, I just googled what a Pangolin is. It’s like a, is it one of the rolly ones?
[00:38:05] Maryam Pasha: It’s the one that rolls up.
[00:38:06] Ben Hurst: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
[00:38:07] Maryam Pasha: It’s beautiful. Once you build a Pangolin, you care about it for life.
[00:38:10] Ben Hurst: Yeah.
[00:38:11] Nizar Zuabi: Yeah. And, and in the education pack, and that was the idea that the [00:38:15] education packs are, you get to build, uh, an animal and through the animal, learn about the animal.
[00:38:21] Nizar Zuabi: Mm-hmm. Sometimes very endangered species, but also about the environment, the people, the habitats mm-hmm. That this animal lives in. Um, there’s [00:38:30] lots of goodies on our website. They’re all free. I
[00:38:33] Final thoughts
[00:38:33] Maryam Pasha: literally feel like I, we could continue this conversation for, for two more hours. We must maybe you’ll come back and talk to us again.
[00:38:39] Maryam Pasha: Thank you so much for sharing. Thank you. And for this work. We’re super excited to see it come to life in London. And, and, [00:38:45]
[00:38:45] Ben Hurst: and remember, stay curious.
[00:38:49] Maryam Pasha: Thank you for joining us this week. We really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode.
[00:38:52] Ben Hurst: If you did, please hit the follow button to make sure that you get next week’s releases.
[00:38:57] Maryam Pasha: And why not reach out with your very own [00:39:00] climate confessions?
[00:39:00] Ben Hurst: While you’re at it, please leave a rating and a review.
[00:39:04] Maryam Pasha: Now, let’s shout out to our fabulous team behind the pod
[00:39:07] Ben Hurst: executive, produced by Josie Colter,
[00:39:09] Maryam Pasha: produced by Ben Beheshty.
[00:39:11] Ben Hurst: Music, also by Ben Beheshti,
[00:39:13] Maryam Pasha: communications by Tara [00:39:15] Cooper and Izzy Gladstone.
[00:39:16] Ben Hurst: Curation by Deesha Chandra,
[00:39:18] Maryam Pasha: hosted by Ben Hurst.
[00:39:20] Ben Hurst: I’m Maryam Pasha, and remember, stay curious.
