Allison Hall - 2024

Artist's Statement

For my final project, I made a zine to put in cafe Ibis. This semester, I thought a lot about my own climate grief and that of the people around me. I’m surrounded, at least at school, by people who understand the challenges we face in a human centric world. And how, despite how hard we try to push back or how loud our voices are, we continue to march towards a tipping point in the Earth’s climate.

I made my zine with this audience in mind. It isn’t full of numbers or graphs, because my audience has already seen those things. And I wanted to reach out to this audience to say that there are people around you who are grieving the climate too, and who still want to fight for a sustainable, just, and vibrant world to live in. It’s discouraging, and at times I feel like there isn’t a point to doing it anymore. But I’m here. And we’re here. And we’re here together. And that matters. We are not on this path alone.

I chose to use militaristic imagery from the battle of Somme, one of the first major battles of WWI. It was there, in the trenches, that soldiers began to sing an altered version of the popular “Auld Lang Syne”. To the music’s tune, they sang “we’re here, because we’re here, because we’re here, because we’re here”. When they sang it, it was because they were fighting a meaningless war, for scraps of land, thousands of miles from home. Completely disillusioned by a months long battle. But over time, the meaning of the words changed. We’re here. Because we’re here. And that means we aren’t alone. And we are here. Wnd there is purpose in being here together. And that is a truth that I can hold onto. And I hope the customers in cafe Ibis will appreciate it too.