I first heard about Sophie Weider from an email she sent me on August 14th, 2024. With Sophie’s permission, here is an excerpt:
Now that’s very flattering and I appreciate the feedback. Sophie and I had coffee in Ottawa a few days later. We talked about the role of art in facilitating inclusive processes for envisioning a more just and sustainable future and Sophie mentioned some of the projects that she is involved with, including Zine for Hope a creative platform for youth to voice their perspectives on climate change and their hopes for a better future. And what is that better future? I ask myself everyday. It’s sometimes hard to imagine but Sophie believe in arts as a connector and I agree with her that :
I invited Sophie to have a conversation with me as part of a series of with people in their 20’s, including e154 - the art of history and gaming with my son historian Riel Schryer (also my son), e200 maggie chang - the power of art with environmentalist, poet, writer, and artist maggie chang and the final episode of season 5, with earth systems scientist Clara Schryer (also my daughter). These four young people, and their peers, inspire and motivate me.
Sophie is also an artist who wrote and illustrated two children's books, ‘The Girl Who Saved a Tree’ (2018) and ‘Who?’ (2020) that explores environmental change and activism to inspire young people to become change-makers in their communities.
Sophie and I talked about who is an artist and what is art, which reminded me of my conversation with another Ottawa artist Barbara Cuerden in e167 barbara cuerden - tending the garden of art:
Here’s an excerpt of what Sophie has to say about gardening as art :
I was honoured that Sophie reached out to chat about our shared passion for art and ecology and was not surprised to hear that she was a top 25 environmentalists under 25 in 2021 of Starfish Canada, an organization that supports youth environmental change makers through storytelling and community.
Sophie recommends the following podcasts and music:
Transcription of e203 sophie weider - hearing young voices through art
Note: This is an automated transcription that is provided for those who prefer to read this conversation and for documentation. It has been verified but is not 100% accurate (some names might not be quite right). Please contact me if you would like to quote from this transcript: claude@conscient.ca
Claude Schryer
Sophie Weider, welcome to conscient podcast.
Sophie Weider
Hi. It's nice to be here.
Claude Schryer
Now, we just met a few days ago, literally, you wrote to me and said, could we get together and chat? We have things in common and we do. Your interest in art and environment and you're an activist. And so I was happy that we went for a walk and told me about some of your work. And I said, well, why don't you come to the podcast and tell everybody about what you're doing? Because I think it's quite exciting, the fact that you've studied in science and you're an artist and you're wanting to do some of the things that need to be done in society, which is to organize and to use art as a way to literally change the world. But let's start at the beginning and why don't you tell us about yourself.
Sophie Weider
Sure. So, my name is Sophie. I'm originally from Ottawa, Canada, but I moved to Montreal for the past four years and intend on staying for a while. I would say that I'm an artist and I try to be a climate leader in my community, although I find the title of activist hard one to claim. And I recently graduated from the Sustainability interfaculty program at McGill and am hoping to pursue a career in the climate space through my work. I am an author and illustrator of two kids books and I also lead a project called Zine for Hope, which aims to provide a creative platform for young people to share their perspectives on climate change and climate hope. And around that, I also organized what I call the climate creation circles, where young people could come together, talk about their feelings about climate change, and also create art together to hopefully build community around climate change and climate activism.
Work and use art as a tool to help people emotionally process what's going on.
Claude Schryer
And what is going on?
Sophie Weider
What is going on? Well, in my opinion, it's a really stressful time to be a young person right now. I mean, you don't really have to explain it, but, you know, the job market's not so good, rent is getting more and more expensive, food is getting more expensive, and then on top of that, we have this climate crisis thing that's sitting there telling us that things aren't going to get better and in fact, they're probably going to get a lot, a lot worse. And that's kind of a hard thing to grapple with as a young person trying to navigate your future when it feels like everything is changing and uncertain and not looking so good. And so I think that art really has a valuable role to play in this time of helping to foster optimism in a way that is grounded in the truth of what's actually going on and what needs to be done, and hopefully helping people to sit in the space of learning and working on climate issues in a more positive and uplifting way.
Claude Schryer
Well, certainly not the first time that young people have felt challenged in history of the world, but these set of circumstances are quite unique, what we call the poly crisis, because there are multiple crises in parallel, biodiversity being one of them. And so it must be hard to face that all at once. I just did an interview last night with my daughter Clara that will be the final episode of this season, and she's hanging in there. I think that's pretty well all you can do, but the more you do, the better you'll feel about your contribution. I assume that being active and being engaged, I'm glad that you're an artist. I saw the books, the one book that you gave me, and I appreciate that you're reaching out to young people. So how do you feel that young people are the ones that you want to work with and deal with the complex emotional issues they might have around climate anxiety and echo grief and those kinds of things?
Sophie Weider
Yeah, I mean, as a young person, I feel like I can really empathize with the situation of other young people and especially people who are younger than me and for who these challenges are. Being introduced to them for the first time, and maybe not in the right way. It's. I think we have to be careful about the way that we teach really young kids about climate change because it's really scary. And this feels like for them there's not a lot you can do. And so I think it's really important that we teach them about climate change in a way that is empowering. And not saying, like, this is something that's going to happen.
There's nothing we can do about it, basically. And then there you go. And just leaving it at that. I think we really need to give children the emotional tools to process what's going on and also the tools to feel like their voice has a value in that they're being heard. And so that's sort of what I aim to do through my work, is to help teach young people about climate change in a way that tells a story where they can really connect with that on like an emotional level and feel compassion for other people and other places on this planet planet and then hopefully be inspired to take action through the stories that I wrote. Both of them involve a main character who decides to take action at the end of the story of learning about what's going on on the planet. And I hope that would inspire other young people to want to be change bakers in their community and see that potentially as a solution for the emotional challenges that they might be facing learning about these really difficult issues.
Claude Schryer
And I guess the arts help as much as, or more than information does, in the sense that stories and allegory and images can touch, especially young people, in ways, and especially if they're also writing and painting and drawing and acting themselves. There's a sense of embodiment, I think, of.
Sophie Weider
Absolutely. Yeah. I would say that stories and art are far more engaging to people in general, but especially young people, than facts could be. Especially because facts, if you look simply at the facts of climate change, things don't look so good. But if you look at this perspective of more creativity and compassion, you might be able to imagine an alternative reality to the one we're experiencing today and to the projections that we are being told is going to happen. And these are real scientific perspectives. But if we look at a more, through a more creative lens, we might be able to have more hope. And I think we really, really need that right now. And I'd also say that, like you said, like children creating art, I think that art is a far more accessible form of communication than a lot of the ways that conversations around climate change are happening today, because, in my opinion, they're often happening behind somewhat closed doors in very academic language, using a lot of statistics and jargon. And that's not a very accessible space for young people. And I think that art could potentially be an alternative way to hold these conversations that might allow for new ideas to emerge and new ways of thinking then. And I think we need that right now.
Claude Schryer
Well, and it responds to the theme of this season, which is the end of the world as we know it. And as we know it parts really important, because the world always changes. A lot of the things that we know now, they're the abundance and the, in fact, the excess we could do without, because we've gone far too far in consumption and kind of madness, I think. And that madness needs to be brought back to earth, literally. And creating new worlds to emerge is what you're talking about. And the imaginary can become real through a process of belief and engagement. But I like the way that you've studied environmental issues and society and are an artist that's similar to Maggie Chang, who was in episode 200, also decided, a young, talented artist who decided to study science.
So why did you go, why did you do your undergraduate degree in sustainability as opposed to art? You know, because you do both.
Sophie Weider
Yeah, that's a really good question. I think it really came from a space of having a lot of climate anxiety in high school and I felt, and maybe this was misled now, maybe I think it was, but I thought that science held the answers and that I needed the answers to be a knowledgeable citizen, to be a knowledgeable leader in my community, and even to be knowledgeable as an artist. I felt like all I wanted to make art about was climate change anyways. And if I didn't know what I wanted to say or what needed to be said, then what use was I? So I figured, well, I can teach myself how to be a better painter and do that on my own time. But it's pretty hard to navigate a lot of the information that we find online about, you know, climate change and the different perspectives of the solutions. And so I really wanted to go to school to get a solid understanding of that and hopefully be able to use what I learned to contribute positively to the work that needs to be done.
Claude Schryer
But you're a bit tentative about that.
Sophie Weider
Yeah, I am a little tentative about that because now that I've learned so much more about the climate crisis, I've come to realize that it really is a people problem, and it requires compassion, collaboration and creativity to solve. And I mean, what fosters those things more than art? And so maybe it's just my own perspective, but I'm really like, after four years of doing science, I'm coming back to the art that I created in high school and sort of alongside my university degree. And being like that was the most impactful thing that I've done and I think that I should keep doing that. And I'm really glad that I did get, I did get the knowledge I did through my degree, but I'm more leaning towards pursuing a more creative approach than a scientific approach now to my own climate leadership work. And I think that there is a need for both science and art and it just happens to be my skillset that I'm an artist and that's what I want to do.
Claude Schryer
Well, I'm glad you reached out because, you know, I was a founder of scale and a number of organizations. I'm always happy to help young people. I don't know if there's a career in art and climate, but there certainly is a need for the kind of work that you want to do, bringing people together and creating work and writing about it. Also, you did an undergraduate degree and you studied the role of art, and so I think that's commendable. And I also am touched that you listen to the podcast and you wrote that, you said some nice things about it just allowed me to indulge a bit on why, what you appreciate or what it brings to you, a podcast like this one.
Sophie Weider
Well, first of all, I would just say that I love the format of a podcast. I am a lot better now, but as a young kid I struggled a lot with dyslexia, so reading is not that easy for me and it takes a lot of time and it can be a bit frustrating. And so having the podcast form was a really good way for me to hear stories and, you know, learn and in a way that was more engaging to me. And also I just really like to like hear people's voices and, you know, hear the, like the human experience behind the work that they're doing. And I think this podcast in particular I was really glad to discover, because I have been doing a lot of work in the intersection of climate and art, and feeling a little bit alone in that work and not really thinking that it had like a way forward beyond what I've been doing. I'm trying to figure out what my next steps are, how I can use art to make an impact. And so it's been really amazing to get to hear so many different stories of completely different approaches, but the same sort of underlying thread of art really has value in this time right now, and that there are so many ways that it can be useful and so many people who care a lot about climate change and are using art to make a difference. So, felt good to hear about.
Claude Schryer
I'm happy to hear that because that's essentially why I did it. And it's also why I listen to podcasts like Green Dreamer and the great simplification and others who aren't necessarily talking about art. But art always comes into the space and it becomes so obvious that without arts and culture, you can't change culture. Right? So that's interesting. And I'm also somebody who listens and is not so good at reading long papers, but I'll listen to not just a podcast interview, but poetry or stories in particular of how, you know, what happened when in a previous civilization. I'm reading a book now about Chinese civilization from 4000 years ago and how it went through a really difficult period. And then, you know, Zen and Dao and Taoist and other types of cultures came out of crises. So I think we're going to have a very difficult time on earth for the next few years. And I feel bad for young people because it's not ideal circumstances. It's not the circumstances I had as a child. But there's still enough earth left for all of us if we can manage it properly and if we can transform, if we can literally change the way that we are, not just, you know, greening a little bit here and there, but really rethink the way that we relate, literally relate to the earth and our kin. Human kin. On human kin, I think that's the only path forward, personally. And so when I do interviews, I always learn things. Interviews, they're conversations. So I always learn things about where people are at, and they always bring new insights. And often, as you said, the tone of voice, the energy in the person's voice, or sometimes the despair in the person's voice is also useful. Then you don't feel like you're the only one who's sad or the only one who's mourning, because grieving is a normal process. You know, there are things around us that are dying, but there are also things that are being reborn, that are being regenerated, that we are learning to relate to differently. So, Sophie, there's a lot more we could talk about, but I want to talk a bit about your art, and I'll get you in a minute to read a bit of your book, if you don't mind.
Sophie Weider
Sure. So, this is the last two pages. You'll have to imagine what came before. Or check out the book to discover.
Claude Schryer
Just a little bit so that we have the author's voice. Tell me how the story that you tell, how does it. You've already answered this, partially because you've said that the young person empathized. But tell me more about not only what you've done, but what you'd like to do with art. What is your vision, your aspiration, in terms of artistic creation and production to really address these complex issues as effectively as possible?
Sophie Weider
Yeah, I guess the story behind those books that I wrote, I was very fortunate to get to go on for the second book, at least. It was inspired by my experience going on the students on ice Arctic expedition. It's an organization that takes youth from all around the world to various places in Canada. But the Arctic expedition was the one that I went on to learn about climate change from the perspectives of scientists, artists, and indigenous knowledge holders. And that was a very impactful experience for me. And so I guess what I wanted to do was take everything that I learned and bring it home for other young people who weren't so fortunate to get to go on this experience. And maybe feel like the Arctic and everything that's happening with climate change there feels really far away from them and bring it closer.
But also to create a learning resource that I actually was able to receive a grant to translate back into a Inuktitut so that it could be a learning resource for youth in the north or Inuit youth in Ottawa. And I was able to donate some copies of the book to the Inuit Children's center here. And so I guess the aim was to create a learning resource that was empowering for young people. And I really like the work that I did with creating the book. It was really enjoyable. But the best part was getting to read the book at the end at schools and community centers around Ottawa and use it as a conversation starter. And for me, I was just so surprised and inspired by how thoughtful young people are and how smart they are, how much they care.
And so I think going forward, I'd like to put a little bit more emphasis on that participatory part at the end and hopefully use art more as a tool to get people thinking, get people involved, especially young people, and hopefully, yeah, help them process the emotions of climate change and move towards a space of action and hope. At least for me, as a young person, art felt like the way to have my voice be heard, and I hope to help other people experience that as well.
Claude Schryer
Well, I'm going to read the beginning, just for fun.
Claude Schryer
Well, you're quite young and you have many mistakes yet to make. I know I made a lot in terms of what art can and cannot do, because part of the issue for me is that art is complicit with modernity and some of the destruction, right? It's not uninvolved or unaccountable. I'm talking about the arts sector in terms of the carbon footprint. Now, it's a relatively low carbon footprint. And so thankfully, there are things like creative grain tools in Montreal and you're, you live in Montreal, so you'll connect with all these people. And that's helping artists understand and it's kind of a scientific, from a data point of view, how much impact their work has, you know, materials and that.
I think that's an important starting point for artists to be aware that they are part of a system that has many issues. And by doing that, they therefore engage further in climate action, which can be personal and say, well, I'm going to change the way I create art to have a lower footprint. And I'm going to help people understand and take action on some of the critical issues, which are often justice based. So they're social justice based they're climate justice based. They're not just the most obvious recycling. Those things are important. We need to address the root causes.
So how does one address root causes? Through a book for children?
Sophie Weider
Yeah, I mean, I would say that really, the root cause of what we're experiencing today with, you know, the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis, is really a very severe disconnect between people and the living environment that supports them and that they depend upon and are also accountable to. And I think that art could have a role in helping people to rebuild those relationships, reimagine alternative relationships to the ones that we have today with our living environment and, yeah, really open people's minds to alternative perspectives to their own as well. Something that I really think is valuable about art is that it doesn't hold one objective reality to be true, and instead it allows for multiple subjective perspectives to coexist. Because while it's valuable to have science that tells us the answers, it's sometimes hard to know. You know, this is the answer and not this one, especially when it comes to more subjective experiences, like, how should we relate to our living environment? You know, there are various different perspectives from, you know, western science to indigenous knowledge that we can learn from. And I think that art can help us see all those things together at once and figure out our own perspectives based on that.
So as a tool for reflection and better understanding other people's perspectives, I think it can really help foster collaboration. And I think we really need collaboration to reconnect with one another in our living environment to help build more reciprocal relationships with the world around us.
Claude Schryer
That has come up many times in this season, as I talk to artists and cultural workers and activists and academics and so on, that keeps coming back. You know, the disconnect with nature, the need to cooperate, the need to live more simply, more, more connected way. And that connection is sometimes intangible. Right? Well, I'm connected to the environment. I went hiking yesterday, you know, but how did you experience that hike?
How did you feel the ground? Did you smell the flowers? Did you. You know, what did it make you? How did it make you feel?
And then you. You might experience an artwork. You might create an artwork. I mean, I'm moving to a headspace where I'm not sure that art exists anymore. I think life exists.
Life is vital. And art, in a way, we've created a separate way of expressing ourselves. And some people have made a profession of it, and they do beautiful things, and then the rest are meant to be audience members going to see the great masters that's sort of a european model of, of the art world. But it's in many cultures, human cultures, there is no word for art. There is no separate, distinct art, the art. And there was an indigenous scholar from Australia, Yin Paradis, who talked about this in episode 193, that art is everywhere in indigenous cultures, or what he calls primal cultures. So some of the things I'm struggling with is the separation not just of, with nature, but the separation of art from society at a time when society needs to integrate arts and culture and everything it does and all the wonderful things that it can do as a way of living.
So what do you think of that, Sophie?
Sophie Weider
Yeah, I mean, in my opinion, I think everybody is an artist, and I know a lot of people don't identify as an artist. And even I have only recently started calling myself an artist and introducing myself as an artist, even though I've been creating art my whole life and literally authored and illustrated two kids books. And for some reason, I don't know what fantastical being I thought the artist was, but it wasn't me. And I've only recently sort of come to identify with that term. And, yeah, and I agree with your comment. Like, does that exist? Because isn't everyone an artist?
Don't we all imagine and create in some way or another? You know, even, like, I like to think about gardening as an art. This summer, through my work, I worked with a non for profit called Envira center, and we did a lot of gardening, a lot of planting and weeding of green spaces around the city. And I really think it's an art. You know, it involves, you know, creatively deciding where the plants are going to go, and it involves, you know, working with your hands to make something beautiful. And it involves a lot of thought and reflection. And I think that's.
That's what art is all about. You know, cooking is art. You know, like, just talking. Talking could be art.
Claude Schryer
Oh, I love it, Sophie. You're just making me so happy, because this is what I've been trying to talk about without denigrating anybody who's a professional artist, because I think there are some people who are a little bit more talented than others or maybe want to invest more time. But it's so refreshing to hear that talk about these activities that are beautiful, that are both productive in terms of food, but also aesthetically very pleasing. Why wouldn't we consider gardening or fashion or whatever it is that we do and care about and put a lot of attention to? Why wouldn't they be important? And why would they need to be separated out and say, well, this is art and this is not art. I mean, I worked at Canada Council for 21 years trying to define what is and is not interdisciplinary art and blah, blah, blah and all these borders.
And there's reasons for that in a public funding system. But in real life, talk to a child, you know, do they make a difference between play and art? And, you know, whatever, it's all one big vital living series of activities. So anyway, there's some work, and I know there's a lot of theoretical work that's on about the definition of art, but for me, instinctively, I'm moving away from that categorization of art as a separate thing. I think it's just the air that we breathe.
Sophie Weider
Yeah, I agree.
Claude Schryer
So we're going to conclude soon. But is there anything we haven't talked about in your notebook there that you'd like to add? Because you've, you've really been very clear, I think, in where you're at at this point in your young life. I admire the maturity you have and your sense of purpose. But is there anything else?
Sophie Weider
Yeah, I mean, I would just say, like, as a final comment, if there's any young people or anyone really who's listening and who's experiencing some fatigue with the climate work or, you know, just is overwhelmed with climate anxiety, my piece of advice would be to find climate work that you find genuinely enjoyable, because I think that we can't keep doing this work if it's a burden on us, especially when there's so much else in the world that is a burden on us. And I think that you can make that work a little bit lighter by trying out art as a way to be in conversation with climate change in a way that is more hopeful and maybe uplifting and also to find community around that. I think that the art space is a space where we could help build community around action. Yeah.
Claude Schryer
And that's a good call, not only to call to action, but a call to break some of the isolation. I started an art and ecology potluck here that I subsequently cancelled because it was too complicated logistically. But I really believe, like, what you're doing in Montreal with those circles, bringing people together, talking about, you know, conversation is an art form in many ways, dialogue, storytelling and so on, and just to break the isolation and to have fun doing things that are meaningful, and they might not be impactful right away. Right. Because if you create a mural, it might have a long shelf life and it might influence people over years, not necessarily right away. And so some artworks have that immediacy, and some have a much longer tail. But to be involved in and to be involved and to have fun doing it, I think, is important.
And I have fun talking to people like you because it's inspiring. And you realize that. That the energy that we have from being together is fundamental to our being able to resolve. I'm not even sure we can resolve these issues, but to find a way to move forward in these times, because there are many good things about these times that we tend to. We tend to focus on the negative things because they are so threatening, literally. But there's so many good things. And I'm not talking about techno fixes here.
I'm talking about people organizing themselves locally, working on regenerative culture. I'm publishing very soon an episode about a book by Alice Irene Whittaker called Homing. People are writing about their experience with anxiety. They're creating works, they're creating poetry, they're gardening. They're doing all kinds of things. And when you connect all those dots, Sophie, I think there's incredible power in change. We don't see it because they're isolated.
So breaking that isolation is, I think, a key element to empowering ourselves and feeling truly alive in this time and in this moment. And it's as good a time as any to be alive, because in the sixties, we were worried about all kinds of things. Then some of those things happens and some of them didn't. But I do think that there's reason to be not sort of a false hope, but a truly, like you said at the beginning, truly engaged, in fact, in reality, but hopeful and engaged in change.
Sophie Weider
Yeah. Having hope that the action you're doing has value and can make a difference, I think, is really the key point. You know, like, if you just feel hopeful and don't do anything, then you might be deluding yourself. But if you do something and you help other people do things, then I think you can feel hopeful that that will have impacts. And sometimes those impacts can be quite intangible in environmental work. And sometimes that means that it's not entirely rewarding, or at least not immediate reward. And a lot of people, and especially young people right now, really love immediate rewards with, you know, social media culture and, like, this sort of impatience in things.
So I think, you know, having hope that what you're doing and what you want to do will have an impact is the most that you can do to keep on going.
Claude Schryer
Now, I always thank you for that. I always conclude with what you're reading and listening to. Do you have any recommendations to our listeners on what's on your bedside or on your phone that you think is good to check out?
Sophie Weider
Yeah. I have other podcast recommendations because I'm very into the podcast. There's a podcast called the Heart Gallery, which is run by a woman named Rebecca Rivola de Kremer, and she is also an amazing visual artist. So we'd recommend you check out her podcast and her paintings.
Claude Schryer
That's really good you did. There's an interview with Christy Belcourt.
Sophie Weider
The one with Christy Belcourt is just amazing. I, like, entered a different world in that conversation. Just, she's the most beautiful speaker. And also, there's a podcast called the Sola Scene, which is run by two young people in Montreal. And it's basically about imagining a better future and talking about what it would look like. And it's very playful and very hopeful, and it talks about environmental themes, but also in a really creative way, so I find it to be really fun to listen to. And then another one called future ecologies.
It's kind of about our socioecological relationships, you know, seeing them through different perspectives, maybe imagining alternative ones. Yeah. And then music. I'd recommend people listen to the album local valley by Jose Gonzalez. It has sort of, like, subtle undertones of environmental themes, but in a very empowering and energetic way, which it's my comfort album that I listen to make me feel better when I'm feeling burnt out. And I think it could work for you, too.
Claude Schryer
Well, thank you for this time, and good luck with everything.
Sophie Weider
Thanks.