What role can art play in helping us understand one of the greatest challenges facing our planet?
For John Kenneth Paranada, the answer begins with listening.
Listening to landscapes. Listening to communities. Listening to the experiences of people whose relationship with the environment has been shaped by climate change long before it became a global conversation.
Ken is a British-Filipino curator, writer and researcher whose work sits at the intersection of art, climate action and social change. As Curator of Art and Climate Change at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts and a researcher at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, he works across the worlds of art and science to explore how creativity can contribute to conversations around sustainability, resilience and regenerative practices.
His curatorial projects include A World of Water, Sediment Spirit: The Activation of Art in the Anthropocene and Tesfaye Urgessa: Roots of Resilience. He has collaborated with institutions including the British Museum, the New Museum of Contemporary Art and the Cultural Center of the Philippines, advocating for more accessible and sustainable approaches to exhibition-making.
But this conversation is not simply about exhibitions or institutions.
It is about how we learn to see the world differently.
Ken’s approach is deeply rooted in his own experiences growing up in the Philippines, where environmental realities were not abstract ideas but part of everyday life. Influenced by his parents’ environmental work, he developed an understanding of nature that is based on relationship, responsibility and care.
That perspective shapes the way he approaches curating.
Rather than treating exhibitions as collections of objects placed within a space, Ken sees them as opportunities for dialogue, connection and transformation. His research often begins by engaging directly with places and landscapes, allowing the environment itself to become part of the process.
For A World of Water, this meant walking ancient paths and sailing across the North Sea — forms of research that moved beyond traditional academic methods and towards a more sensory understanding of place.
We explore how this approach changes the role of the curator. Instead of simply selecting and presenting work, the curator becomes a listener, collaborator and facilitator.
A major theme throughout our conversation is authenticity. Ken speaks about the importance of challenging greenwashing and ensuring that climate conversations are not reduced to fashionable language or surface-level commitments.
For him, meaningful climate action requires honesty, including a willingness to centre voices and experiences from the Global South, where many communities have been living with the impacts of environmental change for generations.
We also discuss accessibility and the responsibility cultural institutions have in shaping how people engage with urgent issues. From sustainable exhibition materials to creating spaces where audiences feel invited into conversation, Ken highlights how every decision carries values.
Ultimately, this is a conversation about courage.
The courage to take a position. The courage to ask difficult questions. The courage to believe that culture can do more than represent change — it can actively participate in creating it.
Because art does not simply show us the world as it is.
It can help us imagine what it could become.
What We Learned from John Kenneth Paranada
What stays with me from this conversation is Ken’s belief that meaningful change begins with a different kind of attention.
So much of the climate conversation is presented through statistics, predictions and distant futures. These things matter, but they can sometimes leave people feeling disconnected.
Art offers another route.
It can bring us closer. It can help us feel our relationship with places, materials and other living beings. It can create emotional connections where information alone might not be enough.
There is also an important lesson here for creatives more broadly.
Ken’s approach shows the value of going deeper. Of spending time with a subject. Of allowing curiosity to lead the process rather than rushing towards an outcome.
The strongest work often comes from genuine engagement.
From walking the landscape. Asking better questions. Listening to different perspectives. Staying open to what emerges.
And perhaps that is the wider invitation from this conversation.
Whatever your creative practice, consider what you are paying attention to.
What stories are missing?
Whose experiences are not being heard?
What might change if we approached our work not just as something we create, but as something that can help shape the world around us?
Because creativity is not separate from the challenges we face.
It is one of the ways we begin to imagine our way through them.
