It’s Freezing in LA!, Issue 10

IFLA! is a new independent magazine with a fresh perspective on climate change. Too often, environmental discussion is polarised into one of two categories: the remote, technical language of science, or the hotheaded outrage of activism. This magazine finds the middle ground, inviting writers and illustrators from a variety of fields to give us their take on how climate change will affect — and is affecting — society. We want to help untangle the climate tensions and choices that our generation will have to navigate by platforming as many different perspectives as we can find. IFLA! provides original, engaging and surprising content that you will want to read — widening environmental discussion and offering a range of vocabulary and insights not found elsewhere.

In this issue:

Penguins and polar bears, floods and fires – the climate movement is littered with increasingly tired images and symbols; the tokens of corporate inaction, sluggish conferences, and an environmentalism that often leaves people, politics and justice behind. So what images, stories, sounds, and performances might be more effective? Visible Signs That Something Isn’t Right is a collection of creative responses to the climate emergency, published by the team behind the critically acclaimed climate magazine It’s Freezing in LA!  with Open Practice. Mixing creative writing, images and essays, this new publication explores how different types of imaginative work can grapple with the ecological, justice and political challenges we face.

The issue includes short stories about rampaging tigers and poisoned water by writers Lucy Zhang and Samantha Cheh, intricate drawings of ecosystems by Mogaje Guihu and a re-imagined world map by Michelle Kuen Suet Fung; perspectives on the interactions between neurodiversity, creative work and ecology from poet Elspeth Wilson, embroiderer Tzipporah Johnston and poet Jane Burn; essays by archivist Gail Tasker on field recordings, journalist Daniel Milroy Maher on photography, designer Anoushka Khandwala on the iconography of ‘natural’ disasters and academic Adrian Holme on plastics; as well as testimonies about greening the theatre creative process by director Eleanor Warr, and on creating green imagery by artist Fungai Marima. Our partner for this issue is What Design Can Do, an organisation that seeks to accelerate the transition to a sustainable, fair and just society using the power of design.

Speaking about the special edition, Martha Dillon, Director of IFLA! said: “I can’t think of a single article in It’s Freezing in LA! magazine that hasn’t been influenced by people making, imagining and creating in the face of the climate emergency. And yet, it’s impossible to answer the simplistic question ‘what does art do for climate action?’ So, we wanted to pin down a slice of possible responses. Visible Signs That Something Isn’t Right is a collection of some of the many creative projects and ideas about the climate emergency that have resonated with us.”