Climate Portals Festival: 25 Oct – 12 Nov

The Climate Portals Festival, which took place between the 25th October and 12th November 2021, took an inventive and intimate approach to the climate change debate, exploring the themes surrounding COP26 and providing a space for people from all walks of life to talk, spark ideas, share thoughts and experiences as if they’re in the same room.

The only one of its kind in the UK, the container was at the heart of the Climate Portals project, an ambitious arts collaboration between the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Shared Studios, Harrison Parrott and Scottish Ballet.

Funded by the British Council, the project was part of the cultural programme in the build-up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), which was hosted in Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November 2021.

The golden portal situated at the Royal Conservatoire’s Renfrew St campus was just one of many portals scattered around the globe in destinations including Iraq, Mexico, Palestine, Rwanda and Uganda. Those who entered would be connected to another worldwide portal and, through art and conversation, engage with someone they would never have a chance to meet otherwise.

11 November, 2pm-3pm

Manifesting as an audio-textual presentation, Sally Charlton and Althea Young’s ‘Intimate Infinities; you as here and everywhere’ sits two people, one in Glasgow (Scotland) and one in Erbil (Iraq), virtually face to face. A guided meditation on the gravity of an individual life, this performance transcends the theoretical in an attempt to establish a tangible, authentic and visceral empathy between two people. ‘Intimate Infinities; you as here and everywhere’ asks if and how radical empathy for an individual life might extend into our care for wider ecologies and highlight the relationship between personal, political and ecological grief.

8-12 November

Your Future Planet was a performance from Kigali to a Glasgow audience shown in the golden Climate Portal located at the side of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Your Future Planet gave audiences the chance to step into the future. There they meet someone from Suray, a fictional country that, in 2021, is already feeling the effects of climate change. What will Suray be like in 2050? How will the lives of its inhabitants have changed? There are three possible scenarios based on potential outcomes of COP26 and possible levels of action to mitigate climate change.