Panel Discussions and Events at BEFF
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (or: dealing with climate anxiety through art, comedy and the collective)
Saturday 10 September, 3pm, Dalymount Members Bar
Hosted by ‘Climate Worrier’ Colm O’Regan, this panel will offer an hour long respite from climate anxiety, and look at the various ways art can help spark creative engagement for a crisis that needs creative solutions.
Join us as we grapple with The Current State of Things, and explore the potential for art to help us imagine new and better futures.
Colm O’Regan is an award winning columnist, broadcaster, comedian and author. He has stood up and made people laugh all over the world, his comedy has featured on UK and Irish TV and his radio show Colm O’Regan Wants A Word has been nominated for and won awards in Ireland, Europe and the US. He has published four books of non-fiction – the three bestselling books of Irish Mammies and Bolloxology – and two novels: Ann Devine: Ready for Her Close-Up (2019) and Ann Devine: Handle with Care (2020). His latest book Climate Worrier is coming out in October.
Alice-Mary Higgins is a progressive, independent NUI Senator with a strong commitment to equality, the environment and human rights. An effective legislator, Alice-Mary has won over 50 amendments since 2016.
Connecting Food Sovereignty to the Climate Story
Saturday 10 September, 6.15pm, Dalymount
On Saturday 10 September, BEFF will be screening Ants and the Grasshopper, a documentary in which activist Anita Chitaya travels from Malawi to California to the White House to persuade Americans that climate change is real.
Accompanying this screening will be a special panel event on Connecting Food Sovereignty to the Climate Story. Drawing inspiration from the film, the panel will look at food sovereignty and the climate crisis, with reflections on how filmmaking and other creative practices can help catalyse a broader understanding of both.
Panelists
Aoife Barry is an assistant news editor and reporter at TheJournal.ie, working across news and arts/culture topics. She’s a regular contributor to national radio shows including Arena, Today with Claire Byrne and The Last Word, and is a co-producer of the weekly podcast The Explainer. Her personal writing can be found at aoifebarry.com.
Sydney Snow is the Climate Policy and Advocacy Director at Oatly’s Climate/Culture Lab , where she works with the Lab team on future-scouting, audacious, business-and-culture-leading pilot projects across the global organization. At Oatly and beyond, Sydney is deeply committed to helping transform the food industry by utilizing environmental justice principles, enabling people to change the way they eat and the way we grow food for a better future for people and the planet. Prior to Oatly, Sydney served as the Senior Political Director for Climate Power, where she led a team of seasoned political strategists to shift climate politics and policy in the United States election cycles. Sydney began her career in the public sector, at the White House Environmental Council, helping launch President Barack Obama’s U.S. Climate Action Plan. Sydney has a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communications from North Carolina A&T State University and a Juris Doctorate degree from the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University. Today, Sydney lives in Washington, DC in the U.S. with her loving dog Reya.
Lauren Boland is a reporter at The Journal with a focus on the climate crisis. She authors The Journal’s monthly climate newsletter Temperature Check and covers issues related to climate action, energy, and the impacts of climate change, as well as a broader interest in political and Irish news. Lauren has featured in news programmes on radio and television and regularly contributes to Newstalk FM’s On The Record. She was awarded Newcomer of the Year at the Justice Media Awards 2022. In 2020/21, she was the Editor-in-Chief of Trinity News, during which time she produced a special edition supplement dedicated to climate issues. She is commencing a Master’s Degree in Climate Change at Dublin City University in September 2022.
Samuel Arnold Keane is a forager, an illustrator, a musician… merging various art forms to tell the stories of the seaweeds, coasts and streets, he gathers, wades and walks. Samuel guides foraging events with an emphasis on marrying ancestral skill within the modern landscape. Finding story alongside practical knowledge. Just as the skateboarder reimagines harsh concrete architecture into playful flow, the urban forager sees the bounty in neglected ‘waste land’.
“Foraging fosters an intimate relationship with our environment. We tap into an ancestral activity. We become part of the flow rather than spectators of the outdoors. We begin to truly care for our environment – the beach we comb, the forest we walk, the derelict land we trespass into, the small slices of wilderness that remain. We start to stand up for it. This is where I believe environmental action truly begins.”