Dr Rachel Jacobs is an artist based in Nottingham and London. She founded the collective Active Ingredient. Rachel completed a PhD in 2014 entitled ‘The Artist’s Footprint: Investigating the distinct contributions of artists engaging the public with climate change’.
We discuss many of Rachel’s projects, including A Conversation between trees (ACM), The Prediction Machine, and Rachel’s current project Performing the Future – a project looking at the future in response to environmental change.
The art of sharing, telling stories
Approach without an agenda
Emotional connection
The focus has been ‘how do understand the data more?’ but there’s a disconnect, we need to focus on ‘how data can be made more meaningful?’.
We need a combination of emotion and logic to act
I’d rather help people think about it and make sense in their own terms than have them get angry or defensive.
Feeling of future unfolding
(Positive) Something has changed, I hope it sticks
Sustainability: Not thinking sustainability as something different from how we live our lives.
Superpower: Caring about how people feel emotionally about the world.
Challenge: Future Machine
Miracle: Changing the causes of climate change
Advice: Try to find out as much as possible, be open minded, even things that scare me.