Poster art tackles climate at the Wild Oat Café 

“Later is too late” by Magdalene Carson  

“Plastic is Forever” by Stuart Kinmond 

Poster art tackles climate at the Wild Oat Café 

By the Art for a Liveable Planet Collective 

Come savour a delicious treat and beverage at the Wild Oat Bakery and Café while taking in an exhibit of poster art entitled “Protect What You Love” all through July. 

Nine local artists of diverse backgrounds and mediums have come together to create more than a dozen posters addressing specific local environmental issues as well as broad concerns that touch us all.  

Historically, posters have been used to call for urgent change and to rally the public mind, for better or for worse. Many posters have become iconic by: documenting struggles for social progress and freedom, such as the image of Che Guevara; marking cultural eras like those of Toulouse Lautrec and the “psychedelia” of the sixties; or rallying citizens in times of war and for national defense. 

Now the world is faced with the existential battle to sustain a liveable planet, today and for future generations. In 2022, Bill McKibben, internationally renowned environmentalist and founder of 350.org, wrote: “Art is at this point as necessary as science in the battle for the future. The poster is likely to be the place where art meets organizing, where it lends its hand most powerfully.” 

In this spirit, Art for a Liveable Planet is the name chosen for this collective project. The participants see this show not as an end in itself but as a beginning of lending our hands to the environmental movement. 

Some artists take aim at the destruction of trees, forests and greenspace for parking garages and “development” while others point to the complicity of the municipal government in ecologically retrogressive decision-making. There are posters that sound the alarm on the up-river Chalk River Nuclear Dump and on nuclear power as a whole, expose incineration as an ill-advised waste-management solution, decry the ubiquitous presence of microplastics and single-use plastics, and call for urgent action on all fronts.  

We look forward to your feedback and suggestions after seeing the exhibit between July 1 and 31 at the Wild Oat (819 Bank Street). A special thank you to the Wild Oat for making its walls available to local artists. 

The participating artists include Aïda Warah, Cathy Blake, Heather White, Jane Keeler, Magdalene Carson, Mary Anne Robblee, Romani Bays, Stuart Kinmond, and Velvet LeClair.