“When the director alerted me that the Museum was celebrating 1 million visitors, I asked Cecilia Lam whether I could interview her ahead of the International Day for Biological Diversity…”
As well as interviewing the director of the world’s first climate change museum, Selva Ozelli prepared 12 digital art shows on green recovery from Covid-19.
“Virtual exhibitions are even more fun to curate now. In addition to offering a digitized version of physically developed exhibitions, we launched a fully animated virtual exhibition—‘Living Greener’—in November 2020. As space is no longer a limitation, this virtual exhibition takes the art of exhibition curation to another level.”
Selva Ozelli is an environmentalist working as an artist, writer, international tax attorney and public accountant, who has curated a climate change art shows with various organisations.
The Chinese University of Hong Kong Jockey Club Museum of Climate Change is the world’s first climate change museum and has been actively promoting environmental protection through its various programs to encourage citizens to live a greener life, preserve biodiversity and promote low-carbon living. The Museum — despite the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns — has been very supportive of my artistic output, consisting of environmental article series as well as art shows. Therefore, when the director alerted me to the fact the Museum was celebrating its ‘1 million visitor’ milestone, I asked Cecilia Lam whether I could interview her ahead of the International Day for Biological Diversity as well as CBD COP15, the fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
CBD COP15 will be held during October 11th-24th in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China where the achievement and delivery of the CBD’s Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 will be reviewed. It is also anticipated that the post-2020 global biodiversity framework will be agreed upon as a stepping stone towards the 2050 Vision of ‘Living in harmony with nature’. The Framework revolves around two key documents: the fifth Global Biodiversity Outlook; and the updated zero draft of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
The final decision on the Framework is expected to be on sustainable and resilient recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic that falls within the scope of the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which are a call for action by all countries to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. More important than ever, these goals provide a critical framework for a sustainable Covid-19 green recovery, which necessitates understanding the links between climate change, health, and inequality; and implementing ambitious climate change policies that align with the Paris agreement.
Also for CBD COP15 and for Biodiversity Day, I curated/prepared 12 digital art shows with the themes of a green recovery from the pandemic, which are exhibited at the UN CBD Secretariat. These art shows contain paintings that were acknowledged in numerous UN art competitions and have the themes of biodiversity concerns: Climate Change; Desertification; Energy/pollution; Health and sustainable development; Biodiversity in Birds; Urban resilience and adaptation; Forests; Water, oceans and seas.
Selva’s interview with Cecilia Lam was published by art.earth on 2nd April, and the 12 art shows she prepared are available at the United Nations Convention of Biological Diversity Secretariat website. Explore the Chinese University of Hong Kong Jockey Club Museum of Climate Change here. You can follow Selva on Twitter.