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With his life-sized animal puppets stampeding their way across the globe representing nature’s struggle in the face of the climate crisis, Climate Curious’ co-hosts Maryam Pasha and Ben Hurst caught up with playwright, producer, and director, David Lan on how public art and street theatre is a powerful tool to engage mass audiences on climate action. David also shares stories from 18 year tenure as Artistic Director at The Young Vic, to his role with the 12-foot puppet art project of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee girl ‘Little Amal’. Recorded live at Ladbroke Hall in London.
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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
00:00 Introduction
00:51 Meet David Lan, playwright and director
01:26 From traditional theatre to public art
05:07 The journey of Little Amal
06:16 Art and activism
14:00 THE HERDS, a new scale of public art
17:02The emerging company
17:38 Iconic images and Lagos experience
18:27 Makoko, the floating village
20:06 The journey and performances
20:30 Audience reactions
23:55 Climate community response
25:30 Art and climate change
29:03 Final Thoughts
[00:00:00] Introduction
[00:00:00] David Lan: It is a journey a across very large territory. The point of it is to cross borders, um, to work with people from many different experiences, speaking lots of different languages, uh, lots of different faith [00:00:15] backgrounds and different experiences of the effect that climate change is having on the planet.
[00:00:21] Ben Hurst: This
[00:00:21] David Lan: is
[00:00:21] Ben Hurst: Climate Curious, the podcast for people who are bored, scared, or confused by climate change.
[00:00:27] Maryam Pasha: I’m Marion 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: I’m gonna introduce our guest today. Okay. I’m a big fan of him.
[00:00:48] Ben Hurst: I’ll allow that on this occasion.
[00:00:51] David Lan, playwright and director
[00:00:51] Maryam Pasha: Um, so David Lan is a renowned playwright, producer and director. Uh, his career has spanned everything from documenting Gorilla [00:01:00] warfare in Zimbabwe to reshaping the landscape of British theater. You were the artistic director of the Young Vic for 18 years, which is amazing.
[00:01:09] Maryam Pasha: Um, today we’re gonna be talking a little bit about your current project, uh, the Herds, which is Public Art and Climate [00:01:15] Action on an unprecedented scale. And we’ll get into that in a bit. Um. I wanna start, first of all, David, thanks for joining us.
[00:01:22] David Lan: Yeah, no, thank you for asking me.
[00:01:24] Maryam Pasha: Um, let me start by asking you this question.
[00:01:26] From traditional theatre to public art
[00:01:26] Maryam Pasha: You start, or no, you start, you have a, a long career in [00:01:30] traditional theater. You know, four walls, a roof stage, lights, and then. You have been the producer for two incredible pieces of large scale global public art. Little Al, which some of you may be familiar with, is the [00:01:45] 12 foot puppet of a Syrian refugee girl that walked initially from the border of Syria to Europe and, and then subsequently has done many walks since then and now the herds, which is a herd of.
[00:01:57] Maryam Pasha: Of over 70 life-sized puppet [00:02:00] animals fleeing the con, fleeing the climate crisis from the Congo Basin all the way up to the Arctic Circle. So very different than traditional theater. Why? Why this change?
[00:02:13] David Lan: I guess [00:02:15] I’d want to say that when I was running the young, big theater, I’ve worked in theater, uh, not all my life, but a lot of, a lot my life. And as you say, a lot of the time that I was producing or, or mostly [00:02:30] producing, but also writing and, and, and directing theater. Um, the work was seen in a, in a room, um, in a, in a.
[00:02:38] David Lan: Big dark room, sometimes a small dark room, but in a, in a room. Um, [00:02:45] but it didn’t seem to me when I was doing that work that I was simply doing what everybody else did, if you see what I mean. I mean, even doing that work, um, I was trying to [00:03:00] do the thing, I mean, successfully unsuccessfully other front people say, but I was trying to do.
[00:03:08] David Lan: Create an experience through theater, bringing together artists [00:03:15] and an audience in order to have an experience they can them anywhere else. And we invent a lot of things as we went along. So it’s true that the shows that I produced [00:03:30] happened inside, as you say. Um, but in many ways I would hope that was.
[00:03:36] David Lan: The only way, one of the few ways in which it was the same as might have been happening in other dark rooms, um, big or [00:03:45] small, we were always trying to find a way in which we could talk about things that mattered. Um, one of the privileges of running the theater in the way that I was able to was that the decisions [00:04:00] about what we did, what shows we produced, who we work with.
[00:04:05] David Lan: And one of the things I was able to do was, and it links to, I guess to your question, um, one things I was able to do was [00:04:15] to work with theater people and other artists from many countries. Um, we worked with a lot of people in this country, of course, and we worked with a lot of. Um, very great artists and people who will be great artists in the fullness of time.
[00:04:29] David Lan: But, [00:04:30] um, we also worked with people all over Europe. We worked in people in various African countries, um, including South Africa, including Nigeria. Um, we worked in the States, we worked in Iceland, uh, we worked in Palestine. We worked all over the place. Uh, [00:04:45] co-produced national theater with the, um, Belarus Free Theater and so on, and so on and so on.
[00:04:49] David Lan: Um. Also, one of the things I used to enjoy doing was producing work by bringing together people who wouldn’t otherwise have thought of working [00:05:00] together. So all that experience when.
[00:05:07] The journey of Little Amal
[00:05:07] David Lan: The idea of a mile kind of emerged out of, not nowhere, but a surprise to me and then a surprise to people who I started to talk to about it.
[00:05:18] David Lan: Um, I was able to use a lot of the experience of the way in which. Me and my team had produced theater at the Young Vic. In order to do that, of course it’s different. Um, one of the things I love about it [00:05:30] is that it’s not in a dark room. Um, it’s outdoors. Um, it’s a journey. Uh, Amal is a, a series of journeys, as you say, and the hers is a, is a journey it crosses board, is it brings together people who are [00:05:45] very unlikely that they would’ve.
[00:05:48] David Lan: Collaborated in for any other reason and so on. The, the key thing in the work I do is the people that I work with.
[00:05:56] Maryam Pasha: Right. Um, just as a side note, if you hear a baby, it’s my baby. Don’t [00:06:00] worry. We’ll cut outta the record. That’s my baby. That’s my baby. That baby is my baby. Actually, he is allowed to be here.
[00:06:05] Maryam Pasha: Um, hi. Hi. Me mom. Hi. Hi. Hi. Oh, there, he’s, I don’t, Michael
[00:06:10] Ben Hurst: Jackson. It Lee, my gosh. Can’t hang the baby off the balcony. [00:06:15] Get a blanket at least. Okay, cool.
[00:06:16] Art and activism
[00:06:16] Maryam Pasha: Um, I’m, I’m cur I’m interested, David, because I guess part of what I’m curious about is that you, in your work. Um, and then we’ll delve into kind of the herds.
[00:06:26] Maryam Pasha: It feels like you’ve been, you’ve been using the theater as a way to kind [00:06:30] of engage in conversations around social issues, around, uh, uh, what’s happening in the world. And I’m, I’m curious to know, as like an artist, how do you do art and how do you do [00:06:45] activism?
[00:06:47] David Lan: By not making a distinction between those two things.
[00:06:49] David Lan: I mean, that’s such an artist answer, isn’t it?
[00:06:52] Ben Hurst: They’re the same. They’re one and the same. You don’t make any distinction between your art and your activism.
[00:06:58] David Lan: What I think [00:07:00] I know a little bit about is producing shows. Okay? Okay. Um, I. I’ve done versions of that. Um, as I say, not all my life, but most of my life.
[00:07:13] David Lan: Mm-hmm. Um, so I know a little bit about [00:07:15] that. What I’m interested in is what happens between the show that you produce or the artists that you’re working with mm-hmm. And the people you’re talking to. It’s a big distinction you could make between the [00:07:30] kind of work I and many other people do in the public theories.
[00:07:37] David Lan: As opposed to the commercial theaters. In the commercial theaters, what you are interested in doing is selling tickets. And these days you are [00:07:45] interested in selling tickets for the highest price that you can get. Mm. Beyonce and who the people are who are buying those tickets mm-hmm. Is irrelevant. It’s just you selling your, your, so that the show is happening in front of people who have the [00:08:00] resource to buy the ticket, to see the show.
[00:08:01] David Lan: That’s all you know about ’em. They’re rich people. Um. We didn’t do that. Um, and that’s, I have to say no particular interest. What was interesting was creating something which would speak to the people, and then I want to know [00:08:15] who they were. I want know who they are that we’re talking to, which helps to understand how to produce.
[00:08:23] David Lan: The show. What I tried to do, I mean the, the theater I ran was in south on a street called The [00:08:30] Cut. Um, it’s a very mixed bit of, um, London. Uh, there’s some quite expensive properties roundabout. There’s also a lot of social housing. There are big, um, estates and so on. Um, I try to produce in such a way that the young people on the [00:08:45] estate across the road.
[00:08:48] David Lan: We’d see the work which we produced at a very ambitious level, working with great artists from all over Europe and America and Africa, and this country, as I say, and that they would have as good a [00:09:00] time and be as engaged as people would go to theater all the time, who were coming down from North London.
[00:09:06] Ben Hurst: But how is that possible? Because you, you, especially if you’re producing something like Little Lamar or the herds where these puppets are like walking literally the full [00:09:15] length of the planet, like that’s everyone that’s every single person could see that. So how can you produce something that speaks to all of those different audiences or are.
[00:09:24] Ben Hurst: Are all the, the, maybe all those people are the same. I don’t know, maybe like everybody in their brain is [00:09:30] similar or everything just works in the same way. And maybe we make the distinction between people and forms of art. I know.
[00:09:37] David Lan: Yeah. I mean, I was talking about the work that I was doing before. Okay.
[00:09:41] David Lan: Which is what, um,
[00:09:42] Ben Hurst: I was gonna say, it’s a lot of audiences.
[00:09:44] David Lan: [00:09:45] Yeah. But, but, but again, when you think about it’s the same. It’s the same or, or simulate to this extent that when we had the idea of doing Amal Mm, I mean one of the good things I did, maybe the best thing I did when we started Amal [00:10:00] was to ask a old friend and colleague who’d already worked with off and on for, I dunno, 20 years, the Palestinian Brian and Director sbi.
[00:10:11] David Lan: I asked Nizar to be the artistic director and I did that because I knew [00:10:15] his working, I knew him and I knew. The complexity and depth of his imagination and his engagement and his desire to work in the way I’ve just described. Um, you’re not shining into the void. You’re talking to people, uh, with whom you have a relationship.
[00:10:29] David Lan: [00:10:30] You’re creating a relationship with them by, I I, I, I anticipated that he would think it that way. Mm. And then when we began to think about this totally crazy idea of walking a 12 foot puppet from the Syrian border [00:10:45] across Turkey, across Europe to originally London, but then the Manchester International Festival invited us to be so, so we ended.
[00:10:54] David Lan: The first journey in Manchester, we had a number of ideas. I mean, the first idea [00:11:00] was that the journey should reflect or resonate with in some way with the experience of the millions of people who are making those journeys. I mean, at the time. The largest number of people in [00:11:15] the millions who were crossing were from Syria.
[00:11:18] David Lan: Um, but of course there were also people from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Eritrea, or from many, many, many countries. So the, the first thing was that it was a kind of homage to that experience. Experience with [00:11:30] incredible courage and imagination that people took out of danger, out of war, and so on. Second idea was that we would invite artists to welcome them.
[00:11:39] David Lan: So in each town, village City that Amal came into, we’d say to [00:11:45] dancers or artists or filmmakers, a child is gonna arrive in your territory. She’s gonna be very tired, she’s gonna be frightened, she’ll be hungry. How will you welcome her? The third idea was that we’d ask power [00:12:00] to welcome her. At whatever level.
[00:12:02] David Lan: So if it’s a village, the mayor of the village, if it’s Paris, the mayor of Paris, if it’s, um, the Vatican, uh, well we got to the Pope and we asked the Pope if he would welcome Amal [00:12:15] in, into, into, into the Vatican. And you
[00:12:17] Ben Hurst: actually asked the Pope,
[00:12:18] David Lan: you, we did.
[00:12:20] Ben Hurst: That’s trippy.
[00:12:21] David Lan: It, it was is your act. It was quite trippy in my
[00:12:22] Ben Hurst: mind.
[00:12:23] Ben Hurst: The Pope doesn’t really speak. Did he respond?
[00:12:25] David Lan: Um, well, you,
[00:12:28] Ben Hurst: no, see it’s the previous, [00:12:30] see,
[00:12:30] David Lan: no, no. He did, he, he did the, the, the way we, we got to him. That within the Vatican there is a department responsible for the wellbeing of, uh, refugees and asylum seekers. Mm-hmm. And the previous Pope, [00:12:45] um, was particularly engaged as people will know with, um, asylum seekers and refugees.
[00:12:50] David Lan: So we got to, its a man called, um, the Cardinal Charney, Michael Hurney, who has that responsibility. And we found our way to him and we said, look, there’s a totally crazy [00:13:00] idea. And he got it. And so we had that meeting. But the point is. What we wanted was people with power to publicly say. To MR, you are a refugee.
[00:13:13] David Lan: You are welcome. You’re welcome. In [00:13:15] my town, city, right? So I mean, in London for example, I mean there are many examples of that, but the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, which is the central establishment of the Anglican Church, the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral stood outside with a microphones surrounded [00:13:30] by some hundreds of, of kids and people, or a couple of thousand people, and said, Amal London is a very big city.
[00:13:38] David Lan: You are welcome here. Right. Uh, so, but it’s theater. We, we, we are [00:13:45] theater people. We all saw that as theater. It’s a performance. But if you’re asking about the relationship between art and activism, that’s one way of doing it.
[00:13:57] Maryam Pasha: The experience you had with the mall was pretty [00:14:00] unique.
[00:14:00] THE HERDS, a new scale of public art
[00:14:00] Maryam Pasha: Um, tell us a bit about the herds and how the experience with the herds has been similar, different.
[00:14:08] David Lan: Well, uh, it’s, it’s similar. In that it’s a very long journey. It’s a journey, [00:14:15] uh, across a very large territory. Uh, the point of it is to cross board is, um, to work with people from many different experiences, speaking lots of different languages, uh, lots of, uh, different, um, faith [00:14:30] backgrounds, um, and different experiences of the effect that climate change is having on the planet.
[00:14:35] David Lan: Um, it’s similar to that extent. It’s different because Amal. Was one puppet and though we had a team of, [00:14:45] uh, nine or 10 at varied different times, puppeteers whose job it was to animate Amal. Um, we’re now traveling with about 50, 55 different. [00:15:00] Puppets of, uh, we’ve got about 12 species on the go.
[00:15:04] Maryam Pasha: So tell us, tell us some animals.
[00:15:06] Maryam Pasha: Sorry. Tell us some of the animals you’ve got.
[00:15:08] David Lan: Oh, we’ve got, well, the, the, the big ones are giraffes and elephants, but we’ve also got kudu. And [00:15:15] wildebeest and little bourbon monkeys. Some of our papier are here, actually. Oh, wow.
[00:15:20] Maryam Pasha: Puppeteers. No, and they’re life size, right? These animals are,
[00:15:25] David Lan: they’re life size.
[00:15:25] David Lan: They’re
[00:15:26] Maryam Pasha: lifestyles.
[00:15:26] David Lan: They, they’re life size. And, and the critical thing about them is that though they’re made of [00:15:30] cardboard, they’re made of recycled, uh, material cane, cardboard, um, lightweight, pretty lightweight materials. The profile is very. Accurate and specific. So when you see our kudu, if you know what a kudu [00:15:45] is, um, you go that kudu,
[00:15:47] Ben Hurst: if you are cultured.
[00:15:49] Ben Hurst: Gosh, what is, what is a kudu? What is that like a, it is a avar. No, no, no. What’s a du gorilla? It’s,
[00:15:56] David Lan: no, it’s like we have gorillas. We have gorillas. Oh, you did invite gorillas. I was gonna [00:16:00] ask, gorillas have got a bad
[00:16:01] Ben Hurst: rap at the moment
[00:16:02] David Lan: because,
[00:16:03] Ben Hurst: because they’re fighting a hundred men all the time. Every day.
[00:16:07] Ben Hurst: Like there’s a hundred men fighting gorillas, and the gorillas keep killing humans.
[00:16:12] David Lan: What’s happening?
[00:16:12] Ben Hurst: I’ll show you afterwards. [00:16:15] I’ll send you the meat.
[00:16:16] David Lan: Our gorillas are very well behaved.
[00:16:17] Ben Hurst: Mm.
[00:16:18] David Lan: Um, no. We love how girl is. Um, Aku is like a very big deer. They very a deer. Okay. Yeah. With big horns. I knew that. I was just asking So the listeners No, no.
[00:16:28] David Lan: I’ll never ask. Yeah, no. So everybody [00:16:30] knows. Yep. So, um, you asked the, the similarities and differences. Mm. One of the differences is that we travel with far more people. Yes. Um, in each city we go to, and we’ve been through about 14 so far, they’re about seven to go. Uh, we recruit [00:16:45] a new group of local people, young people, students, dancers, performers, various kinds who train with us over three or four days and then become participants.
[00:16:54] David Lan: Um, when the events happen in the center of the city, um, these young people are [00:17:00] the performers, uh, for the event.
[00:17:02] The emerging company
[00:17:02] David Lan: But since we hit Southern Spain, Kade four weeks ago now, we were joined by a group of 42 young performers of whom there are the people are. With us this evening, or two or two of those. It’s a group that we call Eco, which is short for emerging company.
[00:17:21] David Lan: Um, these 42 people are training with us, but also traveling with us all the way from southern Spain to the Arctic Circle. [00:17:30] And this is very different from just having one puppet traveling along.
[00:17:36] Maryam Pasha: I have a question about this because I guess.
[00:17:38] Iconic Images and Lagos Experience
[00:17:38] Maryam Pasha: One of, I mean, you’ve, if you’ve been following the herds on social media, you’ve seen some pretty iconic images for me.
[00:17:44] Maryam Pasha: [00:17:45] One of the kind of ones that just will always stick with me is the, is from Lagos, I believe in Nigeria, where you have, um, the herds, members of the herds floating down this, this river where. Will you tell us a bit about that? [00:18:00] It’s, I believe it’s flowing down a river. Some people will hear will know more than me, where it’s one of the poorest communities in Lagos lives and it’s one of the most climate vulnerable.
[00:18:09] David Lan: Yes, it’s the most extraordinary place. I mean, it, it is, it’s one of the privileges of this, of, of doing work like this is that you do [00:18:15] get to go to places that, um, stay with you forever. It’s a suburb of Legos. Not that far from, um, Lagos Island or Victoria Island, which are the centers of the city.
[00:18:27] Makoko, the floating village
[00:18:27] David Lan: It’s called Makoko, and it’s a floating village.
[00:18:32] David Lan: It was built, uh, 70, 80 years ago. Uh, by migrants, um, who had nowhere else to live and they began to build out into the sea. And there are [00:18:45] nobody knows how many people live there, but an estimate is, well, I mean, there were various very high figures, like 30,000 people, um, who live. But on, on water in these little houses.
[00:18:57] David Lan: And they, it’s, [00:19:00] and yeah, I mean we did a crazy thing, which is we put the animals into boats and we sell them across, uh, from, uh, the shores of Lagos to, and then through and through the village. And those are the images that you’ve seen on that, on that video. Very, very [00:19:15] poor people who are fiercely defensive of their territory, how they live.
[00:19:21] David Lan: Um, what they do there, there are all kinds of skills. The one you see most obviously is basket weaving. There are people weaving baskets in the most, [00:19:30] uh, demanding, challenging circumstances. Uh, running shops, barber shops, restaurants. It’s an amazing place.
[00:19:37] Ben Hurst: So what? What I’m struggling to conceptualize, I haven’t seen this live.
[00:19:41] Ben Hurst: You’ve seen it in real life?
[00:19:43] Maryam Pasha: No, I’ve only seen it online. We are all gonna, [00:19:45] it haven seen it online. Okay. We’re gonna get to see it live later this week.
[00:19:47] David Lan: Yeah, this week we’re in London
[00:19:49] Ben Hurst: Live. What is the response of when like, as you float these and also these animals are, the puppets are made a card.
[00:19:56] Ben Hurst: Correct. Putting them on a boat is, that’s a risk. That’s risky business. Yeah.
[00:19:59] David Lan: [00:20:00] But then that’s a, animals are in danger. Yeah. True, true, true, true, true, accurate. They’re vulnerable. They are.
[00:20:06] The journey and performances
[00:20:06] David Lan: Well, the, the point of this, we haven’t quite said this, is that they’re traveling north. To escape the destruction of the ecosystem.
[00:20:13] David Lan: Right. Okay. I mean, in, in the [00:20:15] same way as AAL had a very simple story. She was a, a child refugee from Syria, was looking for her mother. These animals get a very simple story. They, but a powerful story, I think is that they’re escaping the destruction of their. Um, ecosystem. And [00:20:30] so what’s
[00:20:30] Audience reactions
[00:20:30] Ben Hurst: the response of like an audience, the people who are, uh, in the houses on this river or in the banks of the river, or as you march it through, like, well, we don’t know yet.
[00:20:41] Ben Hurst: Well, Madrid or Paris. Yeah. Madrid, Paris, wherever they are. How do [00:20:45] people respond to seeing all of these puppets? So I feel like if I saw it, I’d just be like, what the heck is going on? Yeah. But like, are people like cheering? Are they clapping? Are they crying? Are they, are they just watching in awe? Like, how are people responding to it?
[00:20:57] David Lan: All the, all, all, all. Of the above in, in including [00:21:00] what the heck is going on. I mean, every event is different, every engagement with a group of art. I mean, last night we were in Paris, we had last week in Paris and we were in a part of east, the east, eastern part of the city in Belleville, in [00:21:15] a big open square called the Plus the fat.
[00:21:18] David Lan: And um, the animals were, uh, involved in a very elaborate dance piece. Mm-hmm. Uh, especially choreographed for us by a Palestinian choreographer called [00:21:30] Samar King, who we work with quite a lot and had company of about. Uh, 20 dancers. Um, it was very elaborate piece, uh, in this big open square. Started at about 10 o’clock last night.
[00:21:43] David Lan: Um, and then the elephants, [00:21:45] the giraffe, the gorillas, the monkeys, the kudu and so on. Um, Judi. Awesome. Yeah, integrated. ’cause they’ve rehearsed together into this dance. So it’s a big performance piece. Mm-hmm. But it only happens once. We only, everything we do only happens. [00:22:00] Once. Mm-hmm. And there was an audience of, I don’t know, um.
[00:22:05] David Lan: 5,000 people. Oh, I
[00:22:06] Ben Hurst: had no idea what number you were gonna say. I was, I thought we were going hundreds there. 5,000 people is a lot of people. You
[00:22:12] David Lan: know, I, I don’t beat me up [00:22:15] if I, um, it’s, it, it was a fact check on a lot of fact, check 5,000 fact check. I know 5,000 people. I mean, it, it varies so much. The a again, like with Amal, sometimes the audience are quite small, right.
[00:22:27] David Lan: And the events are intimate. A [00:22:30] couple of hundred people in the street, sometimes in the mall. We used to go into, um, school. So we went into, um, places where young asylum seekers were being, um, looked after. And then you’d have a small intimate event sometimes with, I mean, the biggest event [00:22:45] we had with the mall was in Mexico when we did, when she did a journey from, um, Boston in the US right across America and then, uh, across the border in Mexico, all the way down.
[00:22:55] David Lan: But in. I got Lahara, uh, just [00:23:00] outside Lahara. There was an audience, which police, and, you know, police estimates are always conservative, but at 40,000. Wow. So. Um, the, the hats thus far haven’t had ordinances of that size. Um, but some of the, some of the, [00:23:15] or are very big. Mm-hmm. And sometimes, like when we were in Lagos, if I remember correctly, um, we were in Yeah.
[00:23:22] David Lan: In, in, in Lagos. It, it was. We went into a part of the city where there was a market, there was a market of a lot of people [00:23:30] already there who hadn’t come to see the herd, but the, the animals just appeared in the middle of their, um, busy shopping life in the middle of the street. Um, and then, you know, people, well, you know, ask your question, what the heck’s going on?
[00:23:44] David Lan: And you tell [00:23:45] ’em, you tell ’em, um, this is the reason the animals are here and people get it very quickly.
[00:23:52] Maryam Pasha: What has been, I’m gonna ask it. Interesting question.
[00:23:55] Climate community response
[00:23:55] Maryam Pasha: What has been the response of the climate community
[00:23:58] Ben Hurst: to the Hertz [00:24:00] climate community? I haters, man. We are haters. We are haters. We are, I’m just curious knows because you know, obviously you
[00:24:06] Maryam Pasha: are engaging along the way, uh, and you have throughout the project, different climate organizations, different nature and, and, and, and biodiversity organizations.
[00:24:14] Maryam Pasha: But has there [00:24:15] been, this is a very different way. To get people to talk about this and to think about it. What has been the response from, you know, the climate community?
[00:24:24] David Lan: Well, it’s a, it’s a good question. Um. It felt to us when we were [00:24:30] setting this thing up, and particularly when we were trying to raise the money for it.
[00:24:33] David Lan: ’cause it’s, it’s expensive. It’s a, it’s, we are traveling currently 60 people, um, on the road. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a big project involving a, a lot of people and it cost a lot money. And [00:24:45] when we were trying to put that money together, it seemed to us, uh, helpful if the climate, uh, sciences of the climate organizations I’d known about.
[00:24:54] David Lan: Uh, community I, what that means. But, but that, that, if people would support it, and [00:25:00] quite quickly, the United Nations Environment Program got behind it, as did, um, Ted Countdown. I mean, Azar did a, as you know, a TED talk very early on in Vancouver, which got a lot of people behind the idea. Um. [00:25:15] We have a list of, on the website, there’s maybe 30, 40 different, um, climate, uh, uh, organizations en, en engaged with trying to ameliorate, um, the conditions people are living under and will live under who are part of [00:25:30] it.
[00:25:30] Art and climate change
[00:25:30] David Lan: But out thinking, and this is sort of core thinking, goes like this for. A decade now, I’ve been aware of climate scientists who say we can put the [00:25:45] data out there, and we are, you know, 99.99% confident that the data we’re putting out into the public is good. And it’s reliable and it’s true and it’s gonna happen.
[00:25:57] David Lan: Unless, unless, unless, unless, but [00:26:00] the public is not responding to that in the way that we think. They need to in order to take control of their lives because the data is difficult to assimilate. And if you are talking about the fact that, um, if climate goes [00:26:15] up by 1.5% or half a percent, it’s gonna be devastating.
[00:26:20] David Lan: It’s difficult to feel. What that can mean. Yeah. 1.5
[00:26:25] Maryam Pasha: degrees is a incomprehensible
[00:26:28] David Lan: number. Paint you up, you put up the [00:26:30] oven up to 200 degrees. So what’s the problem with half, half a degree. Mm-hmm. Um, and the climate scientists have been saying to artists for a long time now, um, like, oh, 12 years ago. I was with an organization you will know [00:26:45] called, uh, Cape Fairwell and went with, um, guy who runs Cape Fairwell to, um, the East coast of Greenland.
[00:26:52] David Lan: Um, and that’s significant for me in thinking about, I mean, that was the intention was that artists should find [00:27:00] ways of talking about climate change and maybe. What we’re doing now is, is to some degree, come out of that, but we’ve thought we will try and respond to that request by scientists to artists to find ways in [00:27:15] which, what needs to get across to people can be expressed in a simple but powerful, emotional way.
[00:27:23] David Lan: The the animals. The puppet animal are very beautiful. The animators, including people in [00:27:30] the room who’ve been training with us for a while now are very skillful. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a big experience when they, when they suddenly empty your lives and they forced the question. What your question, what the heck’s going on?
[00:27:44] David Lan: Why is [00:27:45] this happening? And then you can start a conversation about what’s happening in the real world.
[00:27:49] Maryam Pasha: I mean, I had that experience. I think I, I watched Nazar talk at Ted Countdown and you know, I, I was there working and I just, I happened to see a rehearsal and I remember just being in tears and I didn’t, [00:28:00] I’ve never had that response to a talk about climate to be quite frank, unless it’s, you know, from someone on the front lines.
[00:28:05] Maryam Pasha: And I thought there’s something here about bringing, feeling emotion about connecting on a different level.
[00:28:11] David Lan: Well, he’s very, very skillful at that. I mean, the [00:28:15] two key here I am talking about it, um, and my title is producer, but the two key people are am Avi as artistic director and Sarah Lader, who’s our executive producer, who front up what’s happening and are, uh, in [00:28:30] command of all the very complex and in Rehears rehearsals right
[00:28:33] Maryam Pasha: now
[00:28:33] David Lan: and in rehearsals right now.
[00:28:34] David Lan: And also. Uh, Alice Evans, who runs Eco, the company of people who are traveling with us. Um, they’re very skillful of what they do. Uh, but Nazar is especially [00:28:45] partly because he’s a really significant artist in his own right, a theater artist in his own right, partly because of his own experience as having lived most of his life as a refugee in, uh, various circumstances.
[00:28:58] David Lan: Um, he speaks very [00:29:00] effectively about what he’s doing and why he’s doing it.
[00:29:03] Final thoughts
[00:29:03] Maryam Pasha: Let’s, let’s close with one last question, Ben.
[00:29:06] Ben Hurst: Oh, which one? The fourth or the fifth? Fifth. I was gonna ask that fourth question. That was a mistake. Um,
[00:29:13] Maryam Pasha: I’m looking at the wheel. I’m looking at your watch. That’s [00:29:15] how I can tell.
[00:29:15] Ben Hurst: Okay, cool.
[00:29:16] Ben Hurst: Um, alright. Maybe to wrap up, I would be interested to know what is like a piece of, of culture. So like a movie, a book, maybe an album. I don’t know if you are, if you are like a, a muer [00:29:30] like that, but something that’s really changed the way that you think about the world.
[00:29:38] David Lan: Oh, I could, I could, um. I, it’s, it’s hard for me to give you [00:29:45] one. Um, I mean, you have to give one. You can only give book one. Give one. I’ll you one. No, give one. You give more than one. I’ll tell you. I’ll give, I’ll give you one. I’ll give you the one. I’ll give you the book. I finished reading on the way back in Paris this morning.
[00:29:56] David Lan: How’s that? Um, it’s an amazing book actually.
[00:29:59] Ben Hurst: How do you know that [00:30:00] that’s changed? Oh, no. It’s about how you see the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re fine, you’re fine.
[00:30:02] David Lan: Well, I reading the book, no. Good question. But reading the book, I thought, oh, I hadn’t seen that. I hadn’t seen that. I hadn’t seen that. I hadn’t connected this to that.
[00:30:09] David Lan: Right. It’s not, it’s specifically about climate change, but it is about the world and it’s a book called [00:30:15] The Road to Unfreedom, and it’s by Tim Snyder. Who people ought to know because he’s a very brilliant thinker and writer about, I mean, thi this book is about, uh, the relationship between the United States, uh, [00:30:30] Russia, Ukraine.
[00:30:30] David Lan: Mm. Uh, particularly in the persons of the current, uh, president of the United States and the current president of Russia. Um, and the history of the last, uh, 10 years, which has led to. [00:30:45] I mean, I just saw the headlines, uh, in the newspaper just before I came onto the stage, um, that the, um, Iranians have now attacked an American base.
[00:30:57] David Lan: Um, it’s a, it’s a, [00:31:00] it’s a convincing account of why, um, the world’s gone mad.
[00:31:07] Maryam Pasha: I feel like we might have to leave it there. I feel like we might have to read that book. Yeah, you should.
[00:31:12] David Lan: You
[00:31:12] Ben Hurst: should read that book. We will.
[00:31:13] Maryam Pasha: Thank you so much, David. Thank [00:31:15] you very much for chatting with us. We’re gonna have you back in a little bit, but for now, thank you so much, David Land.
[00:31:18] David Lan: Yeah,
[00:31:19] Ben Hurst: Dr. Thanks
[00:31:19] David Lan: for
[00:31:19] Ben Hurst: asking me. Thank you. This is yours. If you want,
[00:31:23] Maryam Pasha: thank you for joining us this week. We really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode.
[00:31:27] Ben Hurst: If you did, please hit the follow button to make sure [00:31:30] that you get next week’s releases. And while you’re at it, please leave a rating and a review.
[00:31:35] Maryam Pasha: Now let’s shout out to our fabulous team behind the pod
[00:31:38] Ben Hurst: executive, produced by Josie Colter,
[00:31:41] Maryam Pasha: produced by Ben Beheshty.
[00:31:42] Ben Hurst: Music, also by Ben Beheshty,
[00:31:44] Maryam Pasha: [00:31:45] communications by Tara Cooper and Izzy Gladston.
[00:31:48] Ben Hurst: Curation by Deesha Chandra,
[00:31:50] Maryam Pasha: hosted by Ben Hurst.
[00:31:51] Ben Hurst: I’m Maryam Pasha.
[00:31:53] Maryam Pasha: And remember,
[00:31:54] Ben Hurst: stay [00:32:00] curious.
