Youth Art Project Metaphor for Soft Landing on the Climate Crisis

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 25, 2018
Media Contact: Cathy Orlando, cathy@citizensclimatelobby.org , 705-929-4043

Sudbury ON: On June 2, 2018, at Sudbury’s Earth Day Festival in Memorial Park, a special interactive work of art will be on display. It is a Parachute for the Planet, four meters in diameter, created and designed by students from R.L Beattie, École publique Hélène-Gravel and Lo-Ellen Park. These students have joined a global movement called  Parachutes for the Planet™.

Parachutes for the Planet was inspired by 14-year-old Kallan Benson in Maryland who made a parachute to raise awareness of people living sustainable lives and affected by climate change. The Mother Earth Project is encouraging individuals, schools, and communities around the world to create Parachutes for the Planet™.  To date, 89 parachutes have been sent to the Mother Earth Project. Their goal is 200 parachutes.

Preserving the climate conditions upon which civilization developed is vital to our health, safety, and future, and parachutes are a metaphor for this process. Parachutes are safety nets and when held by groups during demonstrations or collectively displayed in large numbers, they transform into powerful messages of strength, hope, and communal determination.

“We have arrived at the moment where we must choose whether our generation will be remembered for ruining the planet or the one that saved it,” says Barton Rubenstein, Mother Earth Project co-founder.

In the 1990s, thousands of HIV/AIDS Quilts (blankets) were exhibited in Washington, DC, to bring attention to a disease that was previously not understood. The result of this exhibition was dramatic – people became more aware and governments began to fund research to find a cure. Using artwork and comments displayed on parachutes, the Mother Earth Project hopes to accomplish similar goals for saving the environment.

Sudbury’s parachute is a giant Earth with characters and flags surrounding it. The design was inspired by a giant chalk drawing on the driveway Sophia Mathur made for her mother, Cathy Orlando, when she came back from lobbying on Parliament Hill in 2015. The message on the chalk drawing was “If we all try, we can make a difference”. The flags represent the Bridge of Nations, a unique landmark in Sudbury.

Students from RL Beattie will sign the parachute prior to Sudbury’s Earth Day festival on June 2. At the Earth Day Festival, community members will be asked to sign the parachute.

On October 15, 2018, on Parliament Hill, Parachutes for the Planet from across Canada will be on display. Then all Canadian Parachutes will be shipped to The Mother Earth Project and join at least 89 other parachutes and be displayed in Washington DC and then go on a World Tour.

“I am so grateful for this project. It is beautiful and it is going to change the world. I have no doubts.” says Cathy Orlando, Citizens’ Climate Lobby International Outreach Manager and coordinator of Sudbury’s Parachute for the Planet. “The youth and their parents felt very special after the project was completed.”

For more information about how your school or community can participate in Parachutes for the Planet please go here: http://motherearthproject.org/parachutes/

Canadians, please send your parachutes to:
Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada
435 Notre Dame Ave, Lower Level
Sudbury ON, P3C 5K6
ATT’N: Dr. Sanjiv Mathur

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