In November 2023 and 2024, I was privileged to provide live illustrations and be a 'COPtoonist' for the Resilience Hub's important sessions at the UN Climate Conference. This was a huge professional milestone for me as a cartoonist, and it was wonderful to be recognised for the climate comic work that I do!
The Resilience Hub provides a critical platform for voices from the global south, First Nations peoples, and people, ecosystems and wildlife on the forefront of the climate crisis. Speakers chosen by the Resilience Hub also cover topics which may otherwise not be raised at the COP.
In 2023, I provided graphic harvesting artworks for two incredible sessions - one on Water and Nature Resilience in the Climate Era, and another on 'Artivism.' Both panels brought speakers together from across the world who had very different expertise and experiences, and my challenge was to capture what they said both visually and in notes - in real time!
In 2024, I extended myself much more by sitting in on six sessions and responding to each by creating three cartoons which either highlighted 'elephants in the room' or captured ideas spoken about by the panellists.
Cartooning live is even more challenging than graphic recording - you are not only listening deeply to very complex concepts, but you have to come up with unique ideas in your cartoons to convey what is being said.
I really enjoyed the challenge, and learnt so much about my cartooning and commentary skills in the process.
While sitting at my dining table in Sydney, I zoomed in to the session with my laptop and was able to listen in and draw on my ipad remotely. After the session had concluded, I shared my screen from my iPad so that the panel, audience-members and those watching live online could see the cartoons I had created. It was a bit of a technical challenge for me to get all the tech working but it worked!
ps. I didn't really have a frog on my head, that's an instagram filter .... what it lacked in professionalism, I hope I made up for with my work!