Climate Justice Awareness Week 2026
Climate Justice Awareness Week 2026
Earth Day (22 April) is a global event dedicated to raising awareness about environmental protection and celebrating our planet.
To celebrate Earth Day, we’re bringing climate justice into focus across the Harmony Building. A week of events and experiences inspiring action on climate justice.
Have a look at the programme below:
20 April - 11.00 - 13.00 | Plants and Pots Swap by the Green Embassy
Where: Harmony Square
When: Monday 20 April | 11.00 - 13.00
Bring your (office)plant, choose a new pot, refresh the soil, get a fresh cut, or donate your plant babies to the next plant lover. The Green Embassy welcomes you and your plant to the Harmony Square this week. FREE OF CHARGE!
21 April - 13.00 - 16.00 | Performance Art on The Harmony Square
When: Tue 21 April from 13.00 to 16.00
Where: Harmony Square
In this movement exploration, Sofía Murillo Lommers continues their ongoing research on the relation between human bodies, bodies of water, and temporalities that challenge clock time and the limited perception of time that humans have. For this iteration, they have invited performers to engage with the challenge of slowing down and staying in constant contact with a block of frozen water. Through witnessing the melting of the ice, they explore impermanence, endurance, transformation, and the possibility of attuning to a temporality not governed by productivity. The work is an invitation to reflect on the short span of human life in relation to earthly materials, beings and processes that precede and exceed us, and that will remain long after the rise and fall of capitalist empires.
Performers: Jenny Yi-Jen Song, Oli D’Cruz, Keela Anu Egan, Sofía Murillo Lommers
22 April - 13.00 - 15.00 | Plants and Pots Swap by the Green Embassy
Where: Harmony Square
When: Wednesday 22 April | 13.00 - 15.00
Bring your (office)plant, choose a new pot, refresh the soil, get a fresh cut, or donate your plant babies to the next plant lover. The Green Embassy welcomes you and your plant to the Harmony Square this week. FREE OF CHARGE!
23 April - 20.30 - 23.00| Cinema Politica Documentary Screening
Where: USVA, 10 Munnekeholm, Groningen
When: 23 April | 20.30 - 23.00
Get your free ticket here!
The documentary Finite – The Climate of Change, featured by Cinema Politica Groningen, offers an intimate look at frontline climate activism in Europe. It follows activists in Germany who risk their lives to protect the ancient Hambach Forest from destruction by energy giant RWE, as well as a determined community in northeast England resisting a new coal mine after decades of failed legal opposition. Through these parallel struggles, the film portrays a powerful “David vs. Goliath” battle between ordinary citizens and the fossil fuel industry, revealing both the harsh realities of environmental degradation and the potential of collective action to challenge it.
For this screening we team up with XR Groningen and PINK! Noord Nederland.
Photo Exhibition - CLIMATE NO FUTURE
Where: Harmony Building, Hallway 1315 on the Ground Floor
When: 20 April - 20 May 2026
The Climate No Future photo exhibition features compelling visual narratives of climate activism. It is an outcome of the citizen science project “Security Imaginaries of Climate Movements” (SECIMA). This project explored how environmental activists envision climate futures and the pivotal role of images in shaping these visions.
Through participatory visual methods, activists from Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, and The Last Generation—from Groningen and Hamburg—collaborated as co-researchers, contributing to both data collection and interpretation. SECIMA was jointly funded by the University of Groningen and the University of Hamburg, and co-led by Dr. Delf Rothe (Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy) and Dr. David Shim (Department of International Relations and International Organization).
The exhibition showcases photographs by climate activists, organized into thematic clusters that confront violence, loss and extinction, while also celebrating hope and care. Previously displayed at the Fotogalerie Lichtzone (Groningen), Pop-Up Raum Grindel, and Kunstklinik (Hamburg), this exhibition invites viewers to engage with the climate crisis through the eyes of the protestors themselves.
SECIMA’s impact extends beyond the exhibition, with open-access publications including the visual essay “Climate no future? Picturing imaginaries of climate activists between hope and violence” in Media, War & Conflict and the gallery feature “Visualizing climate imaginaries” in Visual Studies.
Photo Exhibition - ABUNDANCE EXTRACTED
Where: Harmony Building, Hallway 1315 on the Ground Floor
When: 20 April - 20 May 2026
This collaboration between academics, artists, photographers, and poets, offers rare, unfiltered insights into what it is like to live next to a scorching gas flare and a dusty uranium-bearing mine dump.
They have asked how people respond to and live with the environmental transformation caused by mining and oil drilling in Johannesburg (gold mining, South Africa), Mufulira (copper mining, Zambia), and the Niger Delta (oil drilling, Nigeria).
These photographs and poems are part of the research project 'AFREXTRACT: Environmental Histories of Resource Extraction in Africa'.
This is collaboration between academics (Tholithemba Lorenzo Ndaba, Jabulani Shaba, Jackson Tamunosaki Jack, Dumebi Obute, and Iva Pesa), artists (Andrea Stultiens), photographers, and poets.
21 & 23 April | Live Art Sessions in the Cafeteria
When: Tuesday 21 April & Thursday 23 April
Where: Ground Floor Cafeteria
Joshua Dsouza is an illustrator whose practice focuses on building fictional worlds shaped by observation and imagination, drawing from nature and its constant transformation. Working with Ink and watercolor, he creates vibrant compositions that require close attention. These environments are designed to feel both imagined and familiar, inviting viewers into detailed, immersive spaces. Within the context of these landscapes, his work explores the relationship between humans and the natural world. It encourages reflection on the beauty, change, and fragility of natural environments, and how they may be shaped over time through both care and neglect.
All activities are free of charge, no registration is required, just stop by whenever you are in the building!
This initiative came about with the help of students from The Green Embassy, volunteers from Cinema Politica Groningen, staff from The Harmony Building Art Committee, researchers from the Environmental Humanities Network, and enthusiasts from the Public Events Programme of the Faculty of Arts.
Would you like to get involved next year? Contact us via: m.viet@rug.nl
Faculty of Arts researcher Ann-Sophie Lehmann shows that art can be a powerful tool in addressing climate injustice, by connecting artists, researchers and communities to make the abstract realities of climate change tangible and actionable. Through the JUST ART project she leads, she uses artistic research to expose inequality in the climate crisis and to inspire new ways of thinking about climate justice. READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE.