Thank you, UN, for the kind words and for the opportunity to contribute to last year’s exhibition, “Are You Ready?” I’m grateful to use art as a way to engage with global conversations and help us steer our planet to a better path for all.

Thank you, USAID, for inspiring me to bring art and design to social change and international development. This was back in 2016 for the Climate-Resilient International Development Exchange in Bangkok, where I was invited by a USAID director to speak about The Sewer Soaperie and run a cybernetics workshop.

Thank you dear friends, artists, curators, leaders, and doctors for a fantastic month in the Philippines! I am looking forward to future art and design collaborations in this region. Important on this trip was my hand delivery of my PhD diploma to my Mom and Dad. Thank you for all the lumpia, pancit, and ube we inhaled. I’m stoked and ready to start teaching this term in Sydney, and to make all the projects for this Year of the Snake!

Jesús Armas is a Venezuelan activist, Obama Foundation Scholar, and McCain Global Leader who is currently under unlawful detention for his human rights work. Read the statements of the Obama Foundation and the McCain Institute.

The Obama Leaders Network and Jesús’s friends and family are currently mobilising for his immediate release. Please follow the news from the official campaign on the website and on Instagram.

Over the holidays, I designed the logo for his campaign — a small contribution to the big efforts of everyone else. Here is a quick note on the design process:

As with Hong Hoang‘s campaign, the goal was to humanise Jesús to provide a three dimensional glimpse into him as a person beyond his activism. After collaborative meetings hosted by the Leaders Network, I learned that Jesús loves rock and roll music, and the universal hand gesture with the index and pinky fingers sticking out came to my mind.

I had an exchange with Liangyi Chang whom I worked with on the Free Hong logo, and we were debating between whether the thumb should stick out or not as we have seen rock fans use both though the first image is the actual symbol for rock and roll. The second image also means ‘I love you’ in American Sign Language, and so I stuck with the first hand. My third and fourth fingers kind of form a heart anyway, so love was not lost.

I thought of Jesús going to rock concerts with his friends and imagined his hand sticking out with this gesture wrapped in paper wristbands typical of concerts and festivals, and substituted this with barbed wire as a symbol of his activism.

When I showed this to the team, one of Jesús’s fellow scholars sent a photo of Jesús doing this with both hands, so I took it as a serendipitous sign that this was the direction to go.

A few exchanges with the team about Pantone colours…

And here we go:

I am honoured and sad to have made this and I hope that Jesús gets returned to his family as soon as possible.

Thank you to the Obama Leaders Network and friends of Jesús Armas for all their efforts.

My PhD dissertation can be read here, and the documentation of practice (screenshot below) can be viewed here.

Last week, I co-organised a pizza watch party with my friend and fellow Obama Leader Jackson Rowland to watch and reflect on President Obama’s speech on pluralism during the third Democracy Forum by the Obama Foundation held in Chicago. You can watch the speech and more here, but here are the key takeaways:

“[Pluralism] is the idea that because we live alongside individuals and groups who are different from us, we commit to a system of rules that helps us peacefully resolve our disputes, and not only tolerate each other, but join in collective action.

 Here are a few principles to consider as we move forward: 

1. Building bridges isn’t contrary to equality and social justice. In fact, it’s our best tool for delivering lasting change.
2. Pluralism doesn’t require us to deny our unique identities or experiences. But it does require that we try to understand the experiences of others and look for common ground.
3. Pluralism works better when it’s about action and not just words.
4. We’re not born with the muscles to make pluralism a habit. It takes practice, and we need to rebuild the institutions that give us that practice.”

— President Barack Obama

We had a nice group of six attend the call. Clockwise from top left: Jackson Rowland (New Zealand/Australia), Catherine Sarah Young (Philippines/Australia), Kyaw Thu Htet (Myanmar), Dan Ilic (Australia), Dina Jezdic (New Zealand), Skye Riggs (Australia).

Using a Miro board, we collaborated on the pizza. The pizza toppings reflect what we think pluralism is:

I had the pizza base made in my favourite local cafe and arranged the toppings according to the board above:

This was harder than it looks. And the blue flower around the pizza stumped me for a bit until I realised I had lavender at home. As an artist, I saw this as an edible sculpture, and it was 10/10 delicious (lavender included)!

We’ll likely do this again in the future. Thank you all for coming!

This month marks my 11th year of making art about the climate crisis. Once a response to Supertyphoon Haiyan impacting the Philippines in 2013 through an artscience residency in Singapore, the projects have now multiplied to respond to the many environmental catastrophes worldwide that are projected to continue. While the future is not without uncertainty and fear, I find that working as an artist is a hopeful position to have. This week, I keep seeing Rebecca Solnit’s article quoted everywhere, especially the line, “The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything, and everything we can save is worth saving.” Making art is an act of love that persists even when they tell us that all is lost. Thanks for sticking around!

The Sewer Soaperie was part of ‘Are You Ready?’, an art exhibition held from 13-18 October 2024 alongside the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (APMCDRR) in Manila, the Philippines. The opening of the event included Mr. Kamal Kishore, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction; The Honourable Maria Antonia “Toni” Jugo Yulo-Loyzaga, environment secretary of the Philippines; and SM Prime Chairman of the Executive Committee Hans Sy.

The “Are You Ready?” art exhibition presents a wide range of artworks that show the challenges and solutions related to disaster risk reduction in Asia and the Pacific. It highlights the role of art as a powerful form of education to raise awareness and inspire action to build more resilient communities, as is the theme of the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction 2024. The exhibition also commemorates the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, 20 years on.

The exhibition was organized by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) with the support of the Philippine Government and SM Prime, and with contributions from the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. It was curated by Dr. Hannah Entwisle Chapuisat.

The Sewer Soaperie (2016) is an artscience project that turns sewage into luxury soaps. During extreme storms in the Anthropocene, many cities are ill-equipped to handle the flooding that follows. One reason is the coagulated grease in the sewers, with some as big as airplanes and nicknamed “fatbergs”. Among the sources of grease is used oil or fatty waste that is poured into sinks, which drains into the sewers and hardens in the pipes. The world already experiences extreme storms because of the climate crisis, and cities will experience even more flooding if exacerbated by human actions. The Sewer Soaperie takes samples from different points of the journey of oil — from raw palm oil, used cooking oil, and sewage. These were sterilized and turned into luxury soaps through the artist’s saponification experiments. 

The Sewer Soaperie. Images by Studio Catherine Sarah Young.

Thank you, everyone!

Exhibition images courtesy the Department of Environment and Natural Resources of the Philippines, and Dr. Hannah Entwisle Chapuisat and the APMCDRR.

I gave a talk in this cool speaker series in Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada this November 3, 5pm-7pm (November 4, 8am-10am Sydney) on my artscience and sustainability practice. It was an honour to speak with our keynote speaker, Dr. Benjamin Bolden (music educator, composer, and UNESCO Chair in Arts and Learning at Queen’s University); Evan Sharma (multidisciplinary artist); Ren Challacombe (PhD candidate and choral arranger); and Heather Haynes (artist). Exhibit Change is a Queen’s Club that aims to inform the community about social issues and uses the power of art as a conduit for advocacy. Thank you for having me!