Art and Climate Change panel talk: Community Collaboration

In our second Art and Climate Change public panel, Tom Cull and Michelle Wilson will discuss how ecology, activism, and community building inform both their separate art practices and their collaborations.

Michelle Wilson is a queer, neurodivergent artist and mother who develops community-based programs that integrate the creative arts with health and wellness. By sharing stories and images from her collaborative work, she will highlight how these projects challenge colonial systems and create models for caring, ecologically stable, and socially just worlds. Wilson is an organizing member of both the Coves Collective and the Unsettling Conservation Collective. Her work is featured in the group exhibition "Reworldings" this September at the Art Gallery of Guelph. She is eager to discuss how art can embody both critical perspectives and care, a philosophy she describes as "hope punk."

Wilson is joined by Tom Cull, a writer, teacher, artist, and environmentalist. Born and raised in Huron County in Treaty 29 territory, Cull now resides in London, near the banks of Deshkan Ziibi. He works at the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority, teaches creative writing at Western, and was London’s Poet Laureate from (2016-2018). He is the author of two poetry collections: Bad Animals, (Insomniac Press, 2018) and K*ll Your Starlings (Gaspereau Press, 2023). Cull is also the director of Antler River Rally, a grass roots environmental group he co-founded in 2012 with his partner Miriam Love. Antler River Rally organizes monthly cleanups of local waterways and advocates for ecological justice and education.

The Art and Climate Program is made possible through the generous support of incite Foundation for the Arts. 

Also check out other Arts events in Hamilton, Literary Art events in Hamilton, Health & Wellness events in Hamilton.