What we are up to

Climate For Change

13/03/09
by Nick Holloway

FACT, 88 Wood St, Liverpool, until May 31. climateforchange.fact.co.uk

Think global, act local. Isn't that the mantra of eco-activists every-where? So it is with FACT's latest project, Climate For Change, which launches today. The activities FACT has got planned over the next ten weeks - clothes swapping, recycling unwanted objects into art, learning how to Frankenstein your busted iPod - are modest beginnings when it comes to tackling the problem of excessive consumption and waste, but they lead to expansive thoughts about how we should house ourselves, how our cities are built and run, where we get our electricity from, and the impact all this has on the natural world.

First of several artists resident in the gallery, Steve Lambert from Eyebeam is asking visitors to describe what their perfect Liverpool would be like in the year 2050. It's a good opportunity to be frank about the city's problems and how to deal with them, as well as engage in a spot of fantastical thinking about what the place could be like when many of us are drawing a pension. (Here's something Liverpool City Council could do with mulling over: the Urban Environmental Accords, signed by 107 cities worldwide in 2005.)

Lambert is also attempting to start a wiki about the city. It's a Sisyphean task if ever there was one, and one that, like all webpages that allow users to add or alter content, could easily get bogged down in spam and apocrypha. (I have terrible visions already of an editing war breaking out between fans of Liverpool FC and fans of Everton, hooliganism gone cyber.) Lambert needs local know-it-alls, historians and the like to get off their arses if this thing is going to get off the ground, so be sure to get along to one of his Liverpool Wiki workshops next week.