Everybody knows we’re fucked.
The writing is on the wall. It’s in our blackened nostrils, in the floods and the storms and the Mediterranean British summers. Twelve years until human extinction begins. Our ignorance is the only weapon against the creeping sense of dread—and ignorance is winning.
Today, nature is visual fodder for the fourth dimension: the marketplace of the image. #Nature is only a short, Instagrammable car journey away, and now your plastic cutlery is compostable, you’re more connected with Mother Earth than ever before. Arctic ice melts on the floor of the Tate Modern and tourists take selfies in front of it as the world’s fifth largest extinction event unfolds before the lens. This is as much evidenced by David Attenborough's DYNASTIES (masterfully reviewed this issue by Clare Rammelkamp) as it is by the omnipresent, baby turtle-smiting plastic Christmas tree.
In October of this year, a group of citizens took to the streets of London to protest political inaction from the world’s governments on society’s impending doom. Our first fully-fledged feature interview, Inside The Factory, sits down with Extinction Rebellion, the activist network behind the action, to find out more about how their bottom-up approach to protest art could just save the world.
Our film feature, After ‘Virunga’, tells the incredible story of the world’s oldest national park caught in the crossfire of a bloody civil war, where a small group of park rangers have taken up arms to defend half of the world’s (critically endangered) mountain gorilla population against both the government and rebels.
Meanwhile, our performance art feature sees Holly Bond nab an exclusive interview with Action Hero about their mind-bending tech-powered meta-exhibit, which places geo-tagged love songs around the world.
This issue, we're incredibly grateful to host some incredible original creative contributions. Original fiction, poetry, and videos are all here, bidding an artistic FAREWELL EARTH!. We are also lucky to feature the work of some truly exceptional visual artists throughout the month, including David Ellingsen, Ronan Park, Laura Op T' Eynde, and more.
We’ve known for years that it’s over, and the time has come to fight for our farewell. FAREWELL EARTH! says goodbye to the planet we’ve already lost—in the hope of gaining it back.
Dare to dissent
Co-Editors - Niall Walker and Ciaran Daly
Visual Direction - Megan Daly
Performance Art - Holly Bond
Film & TV - Lucy Whitaker, Claire Rammelkamp and Ebba Wester