February/March 2011
WHOLE EARTH? Aligning human systems and natural systems
UK debut for Hard Rain solutions exhibition at Keele University; now opening at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
An new chapter of Mark Edwards’ groundbreaking, internationally acclaimed outdoor exhibition, Hard Rain, launched in the UK on 9 February 2012 at Keele University in North Staffordshire.
Coinciding with the installation of the University’s new Chancellor and renowned environmentalist, Jonathon Porritt, Whole Earth? was opened by Jonathon, Mark and local MP Joan Walley.
A second edition of Whole Earth? launches at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh with a formal opening by Stuart Stevenson, Scottish Minister for Climate Change on Tuesday 13 March at 6:45pm. The exhibition is then open to the public from Wednesday 14 March to Sunday 1 July, before travelling to RBGE's regional gardens at Benmore, Dawyck and Logan from July 2012 to November 2013. This edition is presented together with What Scotland is doing, a display produced by the Hard Rain team showing some of the sustainable development projects in the country and overseas, and featuring specially commissioned photographs by Chris Steele-Perkins.
From March to July 2012, Whole Earth? is on display at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, the University of Aberdeen, the Planet Lund Sustainability Festival in Sweden, St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square and Anglia Ruskin University.
The idea for Hard Rain came to Mark when he was lost in the Sahara desert. He was rescued by a Tuareg nomad who took him to his people and played him Bob Dylan’s song “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”: “Sad forests”, “dead oceans”, “where the people are many and their hands are all empty.” As Dylan piles image upon image, Edwards had the idea to illustrate each line of the song. In the years that follow, he travels around the world on assignments that allow him to capture the photographs that turn Dylan’s prophetic words into images of the real world. It graphically illustrates our headlong collision with nature. The exhibition contains images some visitors may find disturbing.
More than 15 million people on every continent have viewed it in city centres, botanic gardens, universities, and at the United Nations headquarters since its launch at the Eden Project in May 2006. One of the most successful photographic exhibitions ever created, it has attracted huge public and critical acclaim, along with the support and endorsement of political and environmental leaders across the world.
Whole Earth? Aligning human systems and natural systems, developed by Mark Edwards with leading environmental commentator and writer Lloyd Timberlake, responds to thousands of requests for an exhibition that illustrates solutions to the problems highlighted in Hard Rain. It shows that we have the technology (mostly) to deal with our global problems – the vision has been written out often enough – but governments need grassroots support if they are to scale up these solutions and move towards sustainable development.
It is designed to engage the next generation of decision-makers – students at universities now – as well as the general public, in the campaign for sustainable development.
Mark Edwards’ inspirational talk, Hard Rain: Whole Earth? is an urgent appeal to students and the general public to find new ways of influencing political decision-makers to prioritise sustainable development: “The key challenge is to find new ways to show political and business leaders support for sustainable development. Governments can’t get ahead of their electorates. They understand the need for sustainable development, but it os not a priority – voters are not urging them loudly enough to act in favour of the future. What’s needed is a new kind of joined-up campaign designed and led by tomorrow's decision-makers – students at universities now.”
ENDS
Notes to editors
Hard Rain Project is a not-for profit company established to campaign for realistic solutions to global problems.
The original exhibition, Hard Rain: Our headlong collision with nature, has been seen by some 15 million people at over 100 venues around the world. One of the most successful photographic exhibitions ever created, it has attracted huge public and critical acclaim, along with the support and endorsement of political and environmental leaders across the world.
“Sad forests”, “dead oceans”, “where the people are many and their hands are all empty”; Hard Rain highlights the interconnected problems of climate change, poverty, the wasteful use of resources, population expansion, habitat destruction and species loss.
The Hard Rain Project website goes deeper into these issues, reporting on the complex interplay between people and the environment worldwide and presenting commentaries, features, fact files and images that can be downloaded free of charge for educational use.
Visitor information:
Hard Rain: Whole Earth is open to the public on Keele University campus from Thursday 9 February 2012
More info
Mark Edwards is one of the few environmental communicators to have personally witnessed the global issues that are defining the 21st century. Assignments for magazines, NGOs and United Nations agencies have taken him to over 150 countries. One of the most widely published photographers in the world, his pictures are in many international museums and private collections. In 1985 he founded Still Pictures, the world’s leading photo agency specializing in the environment, social issues and nature.
Previous environmental exhibitions include Focus on Your World, a display of 400 large prints at Heathrow Airport. It was seen by over 5 million travellers. Mark has written several bestselling books on photography and co-authored Changing Consciousness with experimental physicist Professor David Bohm.
Bob Dylan is now in his sixth decade as the most influential singer-songwriter on the planet. “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” was written at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, when the world was on the verge of nuclear wipe-out. Now we understand that our environmental problems are just as desperate and just as threatening as nuclear blasts. www.bobdylan.com
Lloyd Timberlake has reported on environment and development issues from more than 60 countries, and his articles have appeared in most of the world’s major newspapers. He has written prize-winning books under his own name (Africa in Crisis, Only One Earth, When the Bough Breaks) and books for organizations such as the Brundtland Commission, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the UN Environment Programme. He recently advised President Obama’s National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.
He has been a visiting academic fellow at Imperial College, London, and at New York University Law School. After graduating from Yale, he taught literature and chicken farming to members of Southern African revolutionary parties and served as honorary commandant of the Tanzanian Mounted Police Force. He now lives in Washington DC and kayaks in the Chesapeake Bay.
The carbon emissions from Hard Rain Project have been fully offset through Rainforest Concern's Forest Credits
Rainforest Concern’s Forest Credits programme was set up with the objective of encouraging individuals and businesses to acknowledge and address their impact on the environment by using the unique power of the forests to lock up carbon, whilst also protecting biodiversity and helping local communities and indigenous peoples. Rainforest Concern has helped to protect over 1.6 million hectares of threatened rainforest since it was established in 1993. Both organizations are non-profit.
www.rainforestconcern.org
www.forestcredits.org.uk
