National Theatre of Scotland in collaboration with Kolkata-based children’s arts engagement organisation ThinkArts have been exploring responses to lived experiences of climate change through art, science and digital technology working with award-winning Scottish theatre makers Shona Reppe and Andy Manley.
Everyone has a carbon footprint so what does yours look like?
Millipede.shop, which launches on 1 November, is a playful, interactive digital art installation disguised as an online shoe shop. Digital art exhibits, relating to shoes and feet, are displayed for visitors to discover as part of a specially created website. The artworks have been created through film, photography, sculpture, spoken word, poetry and song, reflecting personal responses to climate change and the participants’ carbon footprints.
Creators from schools and community groups in India and Scotland have stepped up and crafted their ideas out of whatever materials they have around them – in their homes, their backyards, and the limits of their imagination.
Each shoe design has also been paired with special analysis from leading scientists at Edinburgh Science, Scotland and Science Gallery Bengaluru, India, examining its materials, its lifecycle, and the footprint it will leave on the world. Through this the Millipede creators hope to encourage would-be shoppers to think differently about their own carbon footprints and fire their imaginations in taking those first steps towards shaping a better world.
Millipede.shop was awarded a British Council Creative Commission and forms part of the British Council’s cultural programme, The Climate Connection in the run up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) taking place in Glasgow from 1 – 12 November 2021. The Millipede.shop site will be live for 12 months from 1 November.
Lead artists Shona Reppe and Andy Manley said:
For us Millipede is a ‘first step’ towards reducing carbon footprints – an anti -consumerist fantasy shoe shop to visit from the comfort of your own home. Our aim is to encourage people to stop and think about their carbon footprints without lecturing or chastising. It has been a joy to curate these personal, thoughtful and fantastically creative contributions. Hopefully this will be the first step for many in addressing what we have to do to protect our planet.
On 6 and 7 November members of the Millipede team, artists Sarah Rose Graber and Ruxy Cantir will be at the Landing Hub, 220 Broomielaw, Glasgow from 12 to 4pm meeting passers-by and measuring footprints. Customers will be invited to browse the online Millipede.shop collection of new and innovative designs created by individuals and communities across Scotland and India.
It won’t cost the earth because nothing is for sale.
The Landing Hub is minutes from the COP26 site and is the largest free fringe event space over the conference. Sarah Rose Graber and Ruxy Cantir will also be creatively interacting with the public on Glasgow’s Broomielaw on 13 and 14 November.
The Millipede project has brought together leading Scottish and Indian artists, scientists and climate change experts, working with participants of all ages from community groups based in both countries. National Theatre of Scotland and ThinkArts, working with leading Scottish artists Shona Reppe and Andy Manley alongside the Science Gallery Bengaluru and Edinburgh Science hosted online info sessions for community groups across India and Scotland generating ideas and artistic responses for the collection of digital exhibits.
100 shoes for the digital shoe shop have been created by schools and community groups across India and Scotland. National Theatre of Scotland engaged with Scottish groups including Viewpark Gardens Trust, Homestart, Bangladesh Association Glasgow and St Teresa’s Primary School, Glasgow and ThinkArts collaborated with several community groups working with children and young people across Kolkata and Bengaluru.
Millipede – “The shoe shop that doesn’t cost the earth.”