Climate Visions
A climate future beyond police, prisons, and militarized borders
This video series spends time with people who have lived at the intersection of environmental racism and systemic violence. Following Audre Lorde’s wisdom that, ‘without community, there is no liberation,’ each storyteller shares their visions for a future that cares for people, for kinship, and for this earth free of police, military, and carceral violence. We are of this earth and climate justice means liberation for all of us.
What story is being told with this video series?
The film will introduce the audience to four communities impacted by the Minneapolis-St. Paul police departments who also live and breathe climate change with attention particularly to Black women, trans people of color, and Indigenous people who are killed disproportionately by the police but rarely receive attention.
These journeys will explore opportunities that arise from envisioning new ways of being in relation to one another and our environments. For example, how reallocated police funds could invest in community-driven solutions that holistically address environmental racism while exploring Black and Indigenous generational wisdom about creating systems that care sustainably for the earth and honor the sanctity of life. The goal of this video series is to bring focus to new visions for the future, visions that keep all of us safe and healthy.
Why do we need this video series now?
In a world of climate crises, we need resiliency, community, and sustained malleability. An ability to adjust together, heal together, and build something both new and ancient together.
Now is the time for transformation. Many people understand that the prison and military-industrial complexes must end. Many people understand that climate crises must be mitigated as each year records higher temperatures than the last.
Now is the time for climate justice that advances a world where race and income level do not dictate our safety in the face of climate-induced droughts, hurricanes, and wildfires. A world where public safety protects rather than endangers us.
As Saidiya Hartman teaches us, “So much of the work of oppression is policing the imagination.” Now is the time for radical imagination.
Exploratory footage
This footage was shot between October 2020 and April 2021. While footage is not final, it does provide a small glimpse of what we hope to achieve with this video series.
Note: This footage has not been sound mastered or color corrected.