Climate change has crucial impacts on our life: today and in the future. It can seem like an issue which is too big or too abstract for people to respond to effectively or to consider in their everyday lives. To help respond to the growing challenges posed by climate change, GENERATE partnered with the FOTEA Foundation and Uganda Press Photo Awards on the project ‘See Change: Visualising the Urban Climate Crisis’.
During the project, emerging and established photographers took part in a Masterclass to explore new ways of visually representing climate change from different urban perspectives. By exploring how to tell better stories about the local impacts of climate change in Africa’s urban environments, we aimed to equip visual storytellers with the tools that they needed to raise awareness on these issues, help people understand the climate crisis better, and help them to advocate for change.
The Masterclass was facilitated by two experienced photographers: Georgina Goodwin and Edward Echwalu. It ran from July to August 2022 with participants in Kampala and virtually from Kenya and Nigeria. Participants included: Aídah Namusoke, Derrick Milimo, Oluwatosin Eiseke Bolaji, Wasswa James, Katumba Badru Sultan, Mildred Apenyo, Nicholas Shawn Mugarura, Sam Brian Kiseka, Timothy Namara and Vanessa Mulondo.
Photo stories created out of the Masterclass focused on a number of issues like health, housing, economic well-being and livelihoods. These are presented in our photobook ‘See Change: Visualising the Urban Climate Crisis’, along with articles written by leading activists on how vulnerable communities including people with diffabilities, gender and sexual diverse people, and asylum-seekers and refugees are dealing with and responding to the climate crisis. We also commissioned creative pieces from collage artist Philip Peter Kairu and poet Daphine Arinda.
The photo stories created were also presented in a month-long exhibition at the Uganda National Museum in Kampala and online for six months via Showroom.
We launched the See Change exhibition with two panel discussions, the first featuring activists from communities including people living with disability, sexual and gender diverse people, and refugees and asylum-seekers. The second panel invited responses from three policymakers from government and civil society. Both panels addressed climate-related challenges in Uganda and the need for inclusive and community-collaborative policy responses (nationally and internationally). The opening day attracted over 110 attendees.
