CWE Multimedia exhibition which will take place from 22 July 2011 to 2 January 2012 at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Washington D.C., U.S.A.
Conversations with the Earth is an indigenous-led multimedia campaign to amplify indigenous voices in the global discourse on climate change and other ecological challenges.
CWE exhibitions are created collaboratively to artfully blend indigenous local knowledge of land and seascapes, media expertise, high-tech tools, participatory process, and community action to convey intimate stories of climate change.
The visitor will be directly engaged not only in a story about the earth but also by the means which indigenous communities everywhere share traditional knowledge to address their concerns: conversation.
The event will be an exhibition of photography, talking portraits, participatory videos, interactive website and touchscreen, informative captions and published articles, contemporary interpretations by traditional artisans, in-person testimony and conversation.
“Because of this climate change issue, now there is a problem we have in this community, our sea has changed not like before.
These could be the words of an Indian elder but they actually belong to a man half a world away.
The moment we stop caring about out environment, that is the time when I can say that true “”evil”" is in our hearts. Climate change isn’t just about houses falling off a cliff in the Philippines or polar bears stuck on an ice cap in the Pole. It is about our survival that we are talking about here and these elders know better than us how important the earth’s health is. Sure, we can even sit back and relax on a beach chair with out a care in the world. But when the Earth starts to take it on us, we will realize how wrong we were from the start.”