e200 maggie chang - the power of art

conscient podcast

• I really think art is one of the most important things to help tackle issues and create social change. There's that quote from Maya Angelou that goes something like ‘people will forget what you say or do, but they'll never forget how you make them feel’. The power of art is to evoke feelings that stick with people and that's often what inspires people as well.

Maggie Chang is a poet, writer, and artist whose environmental journey started in first grade when she learned about deforestation of the Amazon in school. Since then, Maggie has led campus secondhand clothing sales for sustainable fashion, organized a UN Sustainable Development Goal training, and helped establish EcoSchools Canada’s Youth Advisory Council, leading her to be named one of the first WWF Canada Living Planet Leaders and a Top 25 Under 25 Environmentalist in Canada.

With a Bachelor of Environmental Studies, Maggie served on the Natural Resources Canada Youth Council and practiced international solidarity with fairtrade, organic coffee communities with Café Femenino, Peru. Currently she works on building an intersectional environmental movement through art and activism and as co-chair of the City of Toronto Climate Advisory Group.

I first met Maggie at the Trajectories for a Just Economy event organized by Foundation for Leadership, Imagination and Place (FLIP) where she was presenting her an exhibit of portraits of her peer BIPOC environmentalists, building on the work she did at the University of Waterloo on her undergraduate thesis, where her focus was on better racial inclusivity in the environmental field.

I was impressed by her vitality and by that series of striking photographs of fellow IBPOC environmentalists and so wanted to know more about her views on art and science and life as a Gen Z eco-art activist:

• In terms of what this generation is feeling around environmental stuff, I heard from a sustainability intersectional environmentalism influencer who kind of coined the term, ‘green girl Leah’ on Instagram, she said that studies have have shown that like millennials feel sort of a climate pessimism, but Gen Z feels climate doomism so that's definitely a really big challenge.

Our conversation took place in a media studio of the Toronto Public Library, which Maggie kindly set up for us. It was good to be in a shared publicly accessible media studio while we spoke about the role of art and its relationship with environmental studies and other cross-sections.

We also spoke about managing eco-grief:

• In the last maybe year or two, I had some very interesting reflections and experiences where I realized that I had a lot of grief within myself around that rupture of connection to land due to migration. When we think about it, everybody has a rupture in connection to land. So for me, it was because of migration, but for indigenous folks, it was because of the genocidal things that the Canadian government did.

I was uplifted and energized by our conversation.Maggie is very hard working and a gifted environmentalist and artist. The world needs more art and science bridge builders like Maggie. I liked the way she weaves networks and considers them as a form of biodiversity. This type of resilience and vision is critical to our collective future, which is in the hands of Maggie and her peers:

• It's just like biodiversity. When you have a more biodiverse ecosystem, you have more redundancy that's built into it and so even when certain aspects of it are not as strong, you have these networks that can still fill into those spaces and it's just like with our community, when we strengthen our community and we create more connections between us, even when certain parts of the community maybe have a bad season or they have to slow down for a little bit, we can still create wonderful things because we have enough connections to fill in those gaps. Just like biodiversity, right?

With thanks to the Toronto Public Library for use of the studio and to Maggie for her time.

Maggies recommends the following publications and accounts:

• Green Dreamer (podcast)
• Green Girl Leah (Instagram)
• On Canada (Instagram)
• Art House TO (Instagram)
• Climate Justice TO (Instagram)

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END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020 on un-ceded Anishinaabe Algonquin territory (Ottawa). It’s my way to give back and be present.

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and it's francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I publish a Substack newsletter called ‘a calm presence' which are 'short, practical essays about collapse acceptance, adaptation, response and art’. To subscribe (free of charge) see https://acalmpresence.substack.com. You'll also find a podcast version of each a calm presence posting on Substack or one your favorite podcast player.

Also, please note that a complete transcript of conscient podcast and balado conscient episodes from season 1 to 4 is available on the web version of this site (not available on podcast apps) here: https://conscient-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes.

Your feedback is always welcome at [e-mail] and/or on conscient podcast social media: Facebook, X, Instagram or Linkedin.

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible.

Claude Schryer

Latest update on July 20, 2024