Dear Earth: Art and Hope in a Time of Crisis is printed on 100% recycled paper that's certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC), with EU Ecolabel and Blue Angel accreditation. The images are printed using vegetable inks, and the production has been carbon offset. The books have travelled without shrink-wrapping to avoid single use plastic. The essays and 'tapestry' sections are printed in a single colour to reduce the number of times the sheets pass through the press, saving energy in the production. After looking at many books that featured greens and browns, we chose a vibrant blue as a symbol of hope and healing.
The book features texts on each artist, and essays by Rachel Thomas, Rebecca Solnit, Maja and Reuben Fowkes, Greta Thunberg and Imani Jacqueline Brown. It also includes a conversion between artist Jenny Kendler and birder J. Drew Lanham, a manifesto by Agnes Denes, poetry by Deena Metzger and an extract from an interview on activism by Andrea Bowers. Dear Earth is designed by Melanie Mues, and the cover features a detail of the drawing Reconciliation (2018) by Otobong Nkanaga.
'I'm telling you there is hope. I have seen it, but it does not come from the governments or corporations. It comes from the people.'
Greta Thunberg
'Art can inform, but it has a larger task in the climate crisis, and that is to make us the people we need to be to respond to the crisis in the ways we must. To make us think of the consequences of our actions; to feel a part of all life on earth and solidarity with those far away in time and space; to perceive the beauty of the natural world and our utter inseparability from it; to remember the lessons of the past about how change works and where power lies; to make a commitment to the future that shapes choices and actions; to value the things that money cannot buy and advertisers are not selling us.'
Rebecca Solnit
Special exhibition price: £24.95
Softback, 176 pages