Stop and Watch as climate change comes to the BFI

Commissioned by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and Animate Projects, STOP.WATCH will be screened in leading galleries, cinemas, new media venues and festivals within the UK, and later across Europe, Australia, Columbia and India.

Seven short films exploring the impact of climate change are to launch at the BFI Southbank on November 4, 2008. Directed by seven international artists, the films explore issues surrounding the human cost of ecological emergencies; the consequences of food and oil prices; and the human impact upon the earth’s landscape.

STOP.WATCH comes as the RSA prepares to launch a new ‘Centre for Arts & Ecology’ aimed at provoking a response from the artistic community to the threat of global warming. The RSA plans for the centre to become a hub for artists to develop new ways in which they can assist in the fight against climate change.

Following the launch the films will be uploaded immediately onto the internet and will be available to watch online via the Animate Projects and RSA Arts & Ecology websites from November 2008 www.animateprojects.org, www.rsaartsandecology.org.uk

Speaking about the launch, Michaela Crimmin, Head of RSA Arts & Ecology said:

”I am delighted that the RSA’s collaboration with Animate Projects has borne such thought-provoking films that powerfully engage our imagination with the danger of global climate change. I hope that once online, these film will send fresh signals across the artistic community – ensuring more voices join the debate and challenge other artists to respond to the major threats we face”.

Also commenting on the launch, Co-Director of Animate Projects, Gary Thomas said:

“We are thrilled by these powerful, beautiful, and witty responses. Commissioned for the internet, many thousands will encounter the films online. They are provocative contributions to the debate about the planet that we hope will resonate and prompt conversation”.

The seven artists were nominated by international curators and challenged to produce films which confront current perceptions of climate change. The result is a highly inventive collection revealing artists imaginations and their strength of concern for the future of the planet. 

Atlantis by Christine Ödlund, a hand-drawn animation which plays on the mythical city of Atlantis

d is for dodo by Jordan Baseman gives us a wry, fast-paced questioning of our desire for exotic restaurant delicacies

it’s like this. by Elodie Pong presents surreal, psychedelic consequences of oil-based tyre production

Damage Limitation by Phil Coy uses Flash animation and the illustrative graphics of a public information film to reveal a formal language giving way to real life experience

I'M SUCKING ON A TAILPIPE IN SEOUL by YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES is a powerful rapid fire text piece about a sushi dinner with friends during which they talk of other climates, other dishes

Make it snow! make it snow! make it snow!

by Manu Luksch offers a short meditation on the manipulation of winter landscapes for tourism that points to their fragility and recalls the need for a holistic perspective

Severed, The Deracinater and The Isle

by Simon Woolham who has created three short animations - Severed, a landscape in peril, coughing up its own blood; The Deracinater, a tree trying to communicate and uproot itself and The Isle, a whole landscape under threat -  all heightening the human impact on our landscape, both social or ecological

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