TippingPoint | Major new commissioning initiative
Special Representative on climate change launches Tippingpoint Commissions

TippingPoint, the organisation set up to engage the arts community with issues around climate chagne (http://tippingpoint.org.uk), launches a major new initiative on Monday 2 February to develop a critical mass of artistic work conceived in the context of climate change. It's launched by John Ashton, the UK Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative on Climate Change, John Ashton was a vital early influence in the founding principles and ambitions of TippingPoint.

With a focus on performing arts, artists will be invited to submit projects that
stimulate audiences towards the radical and imaginative thinking necessary to
contemplate and inhabit a world dominated by climate change.

With awards of up to £30,000, shortlisted artists will have the chance to work with
leading scientists to underpin the process of creating new works for a wide range of
audiences including the arts, science and business communities.

The proposals will be reviewed by a panel of five judges. John Ashton will be joined
by Nick Starr, Executive Director of the National Theatre; Graham Devlin, Chair of
TippingPoint and former Secretary General of the Arts Council; Maresa von Stockert,
Choreographer and Cecilia Wee, Writer, Curator and Broadcaster.

The writer Philip Pullman, patron of TippingPoint commissions, says: “Artists of every kind have one overriding moral duty, which is to do their
work as well as possible. But since that work partly consists of responding to
what the world itself is up to, it would be strange if the best work being
produced didn’t take some account, in some way, of what’s happening to our
climate. Art is not only about beauty: sometimes it has to warn.”

The innovative project has already raised £120k of funding through a generous
award from Major Road. The company was an influential force in British theatre for
20 years and created national productions up until the mid 1990’s.
Organised by TippingPoint, an organisation dedicated to bringing the creativity of
artists to bear on the challenges of climate change, the project will offer profound
reflections on a world that is rapidly changing and on humanity’s role and
responsibilities within it.

UPDATE: TippingPoint commission now launched. See here.