Picture the future

“I DON'T really like having my photograph taken and I am busy,” was my reply when the office volunteered me to participate in Josh Wodak's photographic study.

Lachlan Thompson demonstrates that climate change is definitely in the wind. . Picture: Contributed

"I DON'T really like having my photograph taken and I am busy," was my reply when the office volunteered me to participate in Josh Wodak's photographic study on what climate change could mean to the Valley.

"You're not busy; you do like having your photograph taken," was the boss's reply.

About 3pm on Tuesday I found myself sitting with Josh on the banks of the Clarence talking about his project.

Josh has received a grant from the Grafton Regional Gallery to be their artist in residence and his project gets people to use string, balls of yarn and small coloured balls of pipe cleaner to make a visual prediction about what will happen to the climate in the future.

"The idea is to emphasise that climate change is not some far-off thing in the future; it is going to be real and physical and affect everyone's lives," said Josh.

"The red objects symbolise average annual global temperature difference from pre-industrial levels, blue objects average annual sea level and green symbolises carbon amount of CO2 parts per million.

"Now what I want you to do is hold the ropes in a way that indicates what you think will happen to these things."

After about 20 minutes, we agreed that blowing the balls into the wind was the best option and here's the result.

Josh has photographed a number of people from around the Valley and been talking to young students about climate change.

Originally published as Picture the future