Thomas A. Østbye
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
K4galleriVernissage Friday 1.9 19.00Open Saturdays and Sundays 12-141.9-10.9
We relinquished our freedom that day, and we were more than happy to see it go. From that moment on we lived in true freedom, the freedom to point to someone else and say They told me to do it! It's their fault, not mine. The freedom, God help us, to say I was only following orders.
- Max Brooks
In this suffocating embrace of cruel metamorphosis, her demise entwines itself with the tragic tapestry of their harrowing journey. Amidst the oppressive heat, her vitality wanes, a wilting bloom drained of life's final vestiges. It begins subtly, a whisper of fragility winding tendrils around her, each step through the transfigured landscape an anguished endeavor.
The sun, once nurturing, now a relentless tormentor, sears her tender flesh, forging a landscape of blisters and torment. Dehydration stalks her, the altered climate leeching moisture from the air, leaving cruel echoes of desiccation.
Inexorable thirst gnaws, her senses betraying her. Mirage illusions of water taunt, phantom streams that dissolve upon approach. Delirium lurks, an insidious companion whispering distorted promises in the merciless trek.
Amidst the wasteland, he bears witness to her spirit's flickering demise. He observes her struggle, her form contending with the paramnesia's seductive lull, her steps faltering as the unforgiving terrain siphons away her resolve.
Desperation taints their conversations, futile assurances masking unspoken truths both acknowledge. She poses questions, her voice a feeble thread of suffering, he responds with aching lies, burdened by the truth he dreads revealing.
Beneath the scorching zenith of the sun and within a landscape pulsating with malevolence, her faltering steps stumble further. Her gaze, once portals to wonder, now mirrors unfathomable weariness, a resignation to agony coursing through her frail form.
Collapsed on barren earth, her body trembles, wracked by silent sobs. Her voice, a mere wisp, tremors into the air, "Daddy, why?"
Kneeling beside her, his eyes locked onto her fading light, an abyss of grief and helplessness swell within him. His fingers graze her sweat-drenched brow, encountering fevered heat from her weakened form.
Lips part in a semblance of a smile, a ghostly echo of days gone by. "Who bears blame for this torment?"
The query, accusation and desperation woven into its fibers, hangs, an indictment against a world forever changed. His breath shudders, a poignant silence stretching between them. Then, his voice; raw, unfiltered, pierces the silence, bearing unbearable truth, "We, architects of our own undoing."
As her fading gaze locks onto his, emotions coalesce within that unspoken exchange; fear, grief, reluctant acceptance. Her grip on consciousness slackens, focus wavers. With a final sigh, her fragile form succumbs to the cruel terrain, life's remnants dissipating like mist.
Cradling her, he bears her lifeless weight, a heartrending reminder of the cost of choices. She, once brimming with life, now lies fragile and cold. Tears mingle with the earth's dust, an unending lament for extinguished life.
The landscape remains apathetic to their sorrow, the climate unyielding in its cruelty. Her departure becomes a somber marker, testimony to the devastation from heedless ambition and ignorance. He gazes at the horizon, clouds darken, an ominous portent of bleaker days ahead, mirroring the chaos in his shattered chest.
On the horizon, a storm gathers, black as pitch, a harbinger of merciless days, nature's unrelenting fury. Swirling clouds bear witness to a world pushed beyond its brink, a reflection of inner turmoil. Amidst unrelenting heat, he stands, gaze locked on the impending maelstrom, the storm mirroring the tempest within his soul. Lightning rends the sky, illuminating a world torn by heedlessness, sowing seeds of annihilation. Ruins bear witness to recklessness, blind to signs of doom. Under oppressive heat, he faces the sun and the shadow of a storm, a savage fury unchained.
As her ghostly form takes shape before him, her almond eyes reflecting the starless welkin, she question; "What did we fail to see as the world transformed?"
His voice, laden with sorrow, resonates with the weight of truth, "Our inability to see paved the way for the world we cherished to crumble," the words reverberate through the depths of his anguish.
"Who did this to us?”
“We did it to ourselves.”
Text by Kristian Skylstad
We are the Last Generation of the old world. We are here today to say we will create a new world – where humanity embraces itself, forgives itself, loves itself and commits to continue our great adventure.
As the Last Generation, we will do whatever it takes to protect our generation and all future generations. As is our inalienable right.
The old world is dying. We are in the last hour, the darkest hour. This world is being decimated before our eyes. We are in between moments. What we do now decides the fate of both this world and the next.
So we decide. We decide, we are no longer indulging in our fears, our despair, our resentments. We are putting ourselves behind us.
Together, in community, we are taking hold of a higher purpose. The source of what it is to be truly human. It calls to us across the ages, and with its power we will bring down those who kill to maintain their regimes of extraction. This is the old world. It cannot continue.
We are here to make clear: humanity is better than to give in to extinction. We are here to say society has not turned away from love and truth; it has not embraced evil and death. The world we desire, the one we can have, is already in reach. But we have to reach for it.
But we are not here to highlight, plead or to entertain.
We are here to reach for the change that is required for this to happen. We are here to force governments to slash carbon emissions, nothing less. We are here for action, not words. We have a plan.
We are mobilising in our many nations and many cultures. Teams will run projects. Projects will make demands on governments. We are reaching out to anyone who will reach back and join hands to create this new world. If we are refused we will disrupt, week after week, as those who came before us did many times in the struggle for human rights.
We speak directly to the public, and recruit in hundreds of open meetings.
We commit to mass civil disobedience.
This is our solemn responsibility. Sacred rights require a sacred duty to defend them. And until everyone is free, none of us are free. Only then will justice be done. We will not fall into the trap of hating the other – the other is part of all of us. Our hands do not hold weapons and our hearts are open.
We are humanity, believing in humanity. We are Democracy.
We are open and nonviolent. We are Care and we are Freedom.
We will accept the consequences of our actions and look our destiny directly in the eye.
Bring it on. While there remains breath in our bodies we will not stop. This is our life now.
We are the Last Generation. But we are also the First. We are everywhere. We are coming.
Everything will change. The old becomes the new. And everyone can change.
A22 Network Declaration on the Crisis
CLIMATE TRILOGY