3rd Ring Out China

We don’t inherit the world from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.

In July 2011 Zoe Svendsen and Simon Daw visited China to meet with artists, climate specialists, journalists and art producers to discuss how the issues explored in 3rd Ring Out relate to contemporary Chinese climate change questions, art and performance. We did a presentation at Xindanwei in Shanghai, to artists, cultural producers and media people all concerned by climate change. This was followed by an open space discussion, where the topics ranged from questions of the relationship between art and education, to the decisive split between city and rural areas in terms of climate impacts (for those living in the resource-hungry cities, climate decimation feels remote, even when encroaching, as is the case with the desertification outside Beijing).

In Beijing, we held two round-table discussions at the British Council, using 3rd Ring Out as a catalyst to explore climate change issues. The first was with climate journalists from a variety of organisations, including CCTV, Global Times, the China Information Centre, 21st century Business Herald and China Dialogue. The second was with climate scientists, teachers and British Council climate champions.

In Guiyang, Zoe gave a presentation at the annual international Ecoforum, participating in the education panel.