‘This show comes from the heart’ – climate change takes centre stage at Migration Matters Festival
A monologue about migrating swifts and comedy about the Arab Spring are some of the topics covered by emerging artists at the Rapid Response event
Young artists will come together for an event which explores different responses to climate change as part of Sheffield’s Migration Matters Festival this Friday.
Four artists – Grace Waga Glevey, CJ Simon, Noor Sobka and Beth Keller – were invited to answer to the question “What does ‘Our Home’ mean to you?”.
Their responses, which take the form of multi-media poems, monologues and comedy, promise the audience an “interesting, entertaining” evening.
Grace Waga Glevey, a theatre and TV maker from Humberside with a love of comedy and nature, has produced a monologue inspired by her recently discovered love of birdwatching.
With her mum from the Philippines and her dad from England, Grace says she wanted to use birds’ migrations to highlight the impact climate change is having both abroad and in England.
“The Philippines is already hugely impacted by climate change,” Grace says. “When I started thinking about what ‘home’ means to me I began thinking about that split idea of home that we share with migrating birds like swifts.”
Swifts migrate thousands of miles to the UK from Sub-Saharan Africa to breed each summer but are on the RSPB’s red list as their nesting sites disappear in this country.
“It’s not the incredible journey that puts swifts on the red list,” Grace says, “it’s what they face when they reach the UK – many of their homes have been destroyed, they come back to a home that no longer welcomes them.
“For a home to be the treacherous thing was really powerful to me and that’s something I wanted to explore politically and environmentally.”
CJ Simon is a theatre-maker who has produced a poetic multi-media exploration of what it means to belong in a climate-destroyed world obsessed with ownership.
“I began with ‘how does climate shape movement and detach people from either their literal homes or the planet’,” CJ says.
“My play is interested in how are we forced to change, to migrate, to move away from those things that that make us feel whole. How does, and how will, climate change shape how we experience love, child rearing and even just the ownership of a home.”
CJ and his fellow artists have been working with mentors and climate scientists, and he’s excited to see what the others produce.
“This show is being pulled together by talented artists who, if not directly then indirectly through loved ones, have a knowledge of the effects of climate change in the global south.
“This show comes from the heart. It acknowledges that climate change will be affecting the global south and racialised minorities far more than it will people born, living and dying in the UK. I think that means something.”
Noor Sobka is a northern, North African theatre-maker with a particular interest in comedy.
Noor, whose parents are from Libya, has performance will be a fun but poignant piece exploring identity, self-hatred and family dynamics.
“I've written a comedy piece about pre- and post-Arab Spring Libya,” Noor says. “It focuses on the effects of climate change and the Arab Spring, and the migration patterns as a result of that.”
In September 2023 more than 4,000 people were killed after Storm Daniel hit the country. Noor says having a personal connection to the tragedy makes the dangers of climate change real.
“People who I care for deeply have lost people they love and that has really hurt them,” Noor says. “Events like that make the need for climate action more urgent.
“My mum has been in the UK for many years but when we've been back to Libya in recent years, the contrast from when she was a child in terms of the environment - like the temperatures they now get in the summer - she never experienced when she was a girl growing up.”
Beth Keller is a young artist from Glasgow and has been living in Sheffield since 2021. Her explores our internal struggles as an individual and as a society surrounding the climate crisis through a casual conversation between three characters.
“I have always been driven by climate change and the injustices surrounding it,” Beth said. “I also enjoy theatre for the excitement of creative teamwork and expressing captivating stories.”
Rapid Response is a collaboration between Ark Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam University, Migration Matters Festival and Sheffield Theatres. It was initiated in 2023 to support artists in the development of new theatre work that addresses the themes of climate and migration.