This summer, RAVEN staff and supporters came together to address individually felt climate anxiety and address it through community building, art making, and solidarity with Indigenous justice. Gathering around the theme of Solastalgia, a word coined by Glenn Albrecht that describes the feeling of homesickness we feel for a place that once felt like home but feels like it has been lost due to environmental changes and the impacts of climate change, extraction, and colonialism. Through art and community, we came together to sit with that grief and discuss ways to turn it into collective action.
Collaborative Zine-Making
RAVEN’s Solastalgia series kicked off in July, where we invited folks to a collaborative zine-making workshop, where pages filled with drawings, stories, and fragments of personal reflection emerged. With very little instruction — the group was encouraged to work together, discuss, and find the best way forward together. The day was spent modelling what it looks like to be in conversation about a collective outcome — to throw out preconceived notions we carry as individuals, and instead open ourselves up to what the collective voice is trying to say and move towards.
While solastalgia is increasingly felt by settlers and allies, it is important to recognize that this sense of loss has been thrust upon Indigenous people since colonial contact. Naming this truth grounded our work for the session. Climate grief and loss of home do not begin in the present, but healing can come through justice.
Download the PDF of the zine we created here.
Taking up Space in Public Together
In our second session, we carried these ideas into public space. With medicine wheel teachings from Cree/Métis artist, Coulee Ross, we entered into conversation and creativity around what it means to be taking up space in public as a community, and how art and statements of solidarity are tools to do so. Again, in collaboration with the people who attended, we created a temporary community mural to express these ideas. The community mural was an expression of the importance of putting forward bold and approachable messages of solidarity and of using art not only to process grief, but also to inspire dialogue, joy, and action.
The zine and mural were representations of how our communities can collaborate on acts of resistance and hope. They are invitations to hold space for grief while also building the movement for Indigenous justice. By gathering in creativity, we found that solastalgia can be transformed into connection, into imagination, and ultimately into collective power for change.
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