A fire to last until morning: What's the point of art in the apocalypse?
Date
2025-12-04
Authors
Lowey, Braedon George
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Abstract
"A Fire To Last Until Morning" is a documentary film that features authors, scholars, journalists, and artists who all work at the intersection of climate change and humanities to address why their work is important in the ongoing efforts to preserve our natural world for future generations. By focusing on specific voices in three different locations — Lytton and Victoria in B.C., and Reykjavik in Iceland — "A Fire" highlights case studies of art and scholarship making impacts in the world from individual to generational scales. The first segment of the film interviews poet Meghan Fandrich in Lytton and concludes that relating experiences of climate change and natural disasters through artistic mediums helps creators and consumers, as well as members of impacted communities, process climate-related trauma. The second section features journalist Sean Holman and playwright Chantal Bilodeau, and concludes that exposure to eco-narratives, both real and fictional, drives people towards more sustainable decision-making and more hopeful feelings about climate change. The third section features Icelandic author Andri Snær Magnason and musician Néfur, and concludes that art can connect us to nature in innovative ways, forming or bolstering connections to the land that we see changing. The film ultimately argues that art is one of the most effective ways of sustaining attention on climate change, and is essential for both driving people towards environmentalist causes and empowering those who are already acting in the planet's best interests.
Description
The film is available to be streamed with subtitles here: https://youtu.be/8ZatNe98n0I
Keywords
environmental humanities, ecocriticism, climate change, climate trauma, solastalgia, psychoterratic