Sophia Point is part of a global network of artists documenting the changing climate.
Formed in response to the climate emergency, the World Weather Network is a constellation of weather stations set up by 28 arts agencies around the world and an invitation to look, listen, learn, and act.
Artists, writers and communities are sharing observations, stories, reflections and images about their local weather, creating an archipelago of voices and viewpoints. Engaging climate scientists and environmentalists, the World Weather Network brings together diverse world views and different ways of understanding the weather across multiple localities and languages.
Indigenous peoples in Guyana have protected, worked with, and studied their environment for thousands of years. Those efforts have ensured that Guyana's forest loss remains minimal. Amerindians haven’t contributed to the world’s ever rising carbon emissions, but now they are suffering the consequences.
Art, indigenous insights, our imaginations, and recent developments in Western science can help us read and understand the language of nature and our changing world. At the Sophia Point weather station, we are exploring how these factors can come together, and how understanding them can inform the global response to the ecological emergency.
Through our two projects, we amplify the voices of the Afro, Indo and Amerindian Guyanese, who live near the Sophia Point Rainforest Research Centre.
Land of Many Waters
Guyana’s unique rainforest remains largely untouched by deforestation. It is a biodiversity hotspot and carbon sink of global importance, and its preservation is essential to limiting global heating.
17-year-old British-Guyanese Joshua Lammy has been visiting family in Guyana, and specifically the remote rainforest and the Amerindian community of RiversView, Essequibo River, since childhood. For the Guiana Shield weather station, Joshua has created a short-film focussing on the changing experience of its Amerindian custodians.
Villagers Melena Pollard, Desmond Braithewaite, Newton, and Rodwell Mackey, speak to Joshua about floods, lost crops and failing fruit trees. Their experiences lay bare the devastating impact global heating is already having on traditional ways of life.
“Amerindian people don’t deserve to be displaced or lose their way of life as a consequence of damage caused by others. They have protected and cared for the rainforest for over 5000 years, and, for as long as power is vested in them, they will continue to do so. They will play their role in the fight to limit global heating, and we need to play ours.”
— Joshua Lammy
Will it rain? / Rain bai
We are currently collecting material for our second World Weather Network Project, an audio report, research & sound installation.
The communities living near Sophia Point speak a combination of English and Guyanese Creole. Their livelihoods, based on the river's edge, are closely tied to the weather. As a result, how the weather is articulated is often related to its immediate utility. Does the weather facilitate fishing, farming, building and travelling or does it make you stay at home awaiting the deluge? Will excessive rains cause flooding? Or does the lack of rain result in a ruined crop? Might the shifting impact of the seasons alter the availability of fish, limiting food and livelihoods?
By capturing these local reflections on weather from Guyana, a country at the forefront of the climate crisis where most people live at or below sea level, the project presents and explores a microcosm of the challenges faced globally.
Recording local descriptions and stories of the weather, over the period of a year, and then pairing these with meteorological data collected at Sophia Point, the project will explore the existence of patterns or divergences between quantified weather data and the anecdotal accounts of living and working with the weather. A final report will combine recorded audio, transcribed discussion and meteorological data to provide a picture of one of the most important and pristine sites of biodiversity left on the planet.
Participating Artists: Nicola Green, Sam Airey & Miranda Bragan-Turner.