Background & Remit
A La Luz:
A Cultural Spotlight on the Climate Crisis
Welcome to our new website. For those of you who already have some knowledge of our collaboration, you’ll know of the various stages of development A La Luz has gone through. We – artists David Cass & Gonzaga Gómez-Cortázar – met in Spain in 2014 and started this project soon after. Our mission then was to work with artists – those who shared our own sensibilities – on film, photography & design projects. We also collaborated as a pair, shooting film in Almería, Cádiz, Euskadi, Tangier, Gozo & Venice. Our work has always been bound by a preoccupation with the environment around us, though in recent months our climate focus has intensified.
We’ve been stepping-up our collaboration, re-shaping A La Luz with the climate emergency in mind. Just as harnessing our rapidly changing Earth can only be done collectively, so too must this art project be inclusive and collaborative in its nature. The aim of A La Luz – which translates from the Spanish as “spotlight”, “bringing to light” or “shedding light on” – is to be platform for creative voices who speak of our planet’s state. In raising awareness through the production of art, makers are presenting their concern, care and desire to influence change through the most direct means at their disposal.
We intend to curate exhibitions – physically and virtually – share, promote, act as a reference tool and be a resource for the dispersal of creative responses to climate change; guided by those we’re inspired by. This includes all art forms, from painting to architecture; and from theatre to literature. We will also share research materials – blog posts, articles, scientific papers, creative texts – as well as book and film recommendations on the topic. Article proposals are always welcome.
We believe that art carries a responsibility, that accessibility is vital and that in this day and age creatives – who have been afforded a platform – must be mindful of what’s happening to the Earth around them. This doesn’t mean that we believe all art-forms should discuss the environment, rather, that artists must consider their processes, their material choices and the ways in which they present their message. The footprint and processes of everything we share here is considered, as are our own actions in bringing our work together.
“Have we come all this way, only to be dismantled by our own technologies, to be betrayed by political connivance or the impersonal avarice of a corporation? Whatever wisdom I would find, I knew, would grow out of the land… and would reveal itself in the presence of well-chosen companions.”
Banner image: Oil Spill, Adobe stock image
