Social Dreaming Climate Change

A research project exploring the contemporary cultural unconscious of climate change.

fragmented projection of a man on an urban wall
Projection of Lemn Sissay’s What If? film, part of Social Dreaming Climate Change. Photo by David Buckland.

Social Dreaming Climate Change is a psychosocial research pilot study into the contemporary cultural unconscious of climate change by Cape Farewell, created in partnership with Climate Psychology Alliance and funded by Compton Foundation.

Sixteen climate experts including artists, scientists, activists and entrepreneurs gathered in 2017 to explore the themes that characterise the contemporary cultural unconscious of climate change. This intense weekend of social dreaming produced fields of data now being analysed by the psychosocial team.

Listen to One thought fills immensity, the sound artwork from the recorded data created by Sarah Washington and widely broadcast on radio.

“Thinking the Unthinkable” is a chapter based on the Social Dreaming, Art and Climate Change event in Dorset. The authors Julian Manley and Wendy Hollway give examples of researching the ‘unthought known’ of climate change, based on dreaming, which brings to light the hard-to bear reality of global heating. Available now in Climate Psychology, published by Palgrave in 2019.

group portrait
Psychosocial in Dorset, 2017

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