Award Winning Environmental Music Videos
What is Field to Media?
Field to Media is about amplifying musical communities’ responses to environmental challenges. Field researchers worked with communities in Canada, Bangladesh, China, Haiti, India, Tanzania, and the United States to create musical videos and cinematic messaging about climate change, water pollution, deforestation, and the impact of motor noise on marine life. Below you will find a full length film about the project, followed by all of the musical videos, documentary shorts, and publications generated by the project. Field to Media was funded by the Humanities Without Walls’ “Humanities in a Changing Climate” based at the University of Illinois, which is, in turn, funded by the Mellon Foundation.
Community Co-productions: Musical Videos and Performances
An environmentally engaged effort to encouragement reforestation, one small act at a time. Composer: BIC Featuring Kompè Filo (Anthony Pascal) In memory of Kompè Filo; Music production: Manoumba Records and BIC Tizon Dife; Studio Music recording: BIC and BIC Tizon Dife; Studio Camera: Johny Tingue and Abraham Lincoln; Producer: Rebecca Dirksen / Verilux Films Director: Kendy Vérilus / Verilux Films COPYRIGHT Manoumba Records / Verilux Films / BIC (Roosevelt Saillant) 2020
This video was filmed in June 2018 in Yaeda Chini, Tanzania. This song alludes to the process by which the Hadzabe extract honey from trees. The singer asks for an axe in order to cut into a tree or branch inhabited by honeybees. Once the hive is accessible, the Hadzabe waste nothing. They remove the honeycomb and consume the wax, honey, and larvae directly from the tree and use available leaves to remove residual stickiness from their hands afterwards. The video is framed in order to highlight current environmental concerns of the Hadzabe community residing in Yaeda Chini while showcasing the various ways in which they use the natural resources in the area.
The Video was recorded in Summer 2018 in Narayangunj, Bangladesh. The song talks about the dangers the proposed Rampal Power Plant poses to Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, shared by India and Bangladesh. Please visit Ecosong.Net to learn more about the issue. Song: Dwellers of the Forest Arise; Lyrics and Music: Amal Akash; English Translation: Shahidul Alam; Performed by: Samageet (visit www.samageet.com)
LOUD is a captivating music video about noise pollution in the Salish Sea and throughout our oceans. It was created by Ecosong.Net, the Hypoxic Punks, and an incredible group of singers in Washington State and British Columbia. Go to Ecosong.Net to learn how noise affects wildlife and what we can all do to create quieter places in the Salish Sea for orcas, humans, and all sea creatures.
Dancing Upstream: Current Issues of Environmental Awareness as Performance is a theatrical dance and music production. The intercultural (Chinese/American), interdisciplinary (music/dance), and collaborative project was created to raise public awareness of pollution in the Funan River in Sichuan. Yan Pang used music and dance as modes of inquiry to engage with environmental practices in China. The “Current Issues” video that follows the dance performance shows the artists discussing the piece, its creation, and meanings. yanpangcreate.com
Documentary Shorts
Does whale watching protect or harm whales? This film explores heated controversies over whale watching, boat noise, and orca conservation in Washington State and British Columbia. Whale watching companies claim that they serve as "sentinels" protecting the orca from unwary recreational boaters, ferries, and ships. A number of local conservationists and scientists have argued that whale watching boats crowd and harass whales, while adding noise to the orcas' immediate environment that makes it difficult for the social species to survive. The Pacific Whale Watch Association has hired lobbyists and brought suit against their local opponents. "Sentinels of Silence?" uses dramatic imagery, peer-reviewed science, and interviews with conservationists, scientists, and industry officials to bring a fascinating chapter in the orca conservation story to light.
Musical Mangrove is a story about a transnational ecomusical movement to save the world’s largest mangrove forest, Sundarbans, shared between India and Bangladesh. The film is called “Musical Mangrove” because it shows how the artists and musicians of both countries are using music and performing arts to propel an environmental movement. It follows the story arc of late Mr. Arjun Modal, his three indigenous musical groups, and a group of Bangladeshi artists who use visual and performing arts to fight against unsustainable policies. While following the stories of the groups and individuals, “Musical Mangrove” talks about the threats to the forest posed by climate change, erratic weather events, saltwater intrusion, rising sea level, unsustainable industrial encroachment, and what it does to the people living in the forests.
Publications
Dirksen, Rebecca, Mark Pedelty, Yan Pang, and Elja Roy. (in press). “Exploring the Environmental Humanities through Film Production.” Empirical Ecocriticism. Volume edited by Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Frank Hakemulder, Wojciech Malecki, and Alexa Weik von Mossner. Yale University Press.
Dirksen, Rebecca. (in press). “Reinvoking Bran Bwa (Great Forest): Music, Environmental Justice, and a Vodou-Inspired Mission to Plant Trees across Haiti.” Music and Human Rights. Edited by Peter G. Kirchschlaeger, Manfred Nowak, Julian Fifer, Alessio Allegrini, Angela Impey, and George Ulrich. Abingdon-on-Thames, UK: Routledge.
Hatfield, Tara. (2019). “Music, Musicians, and Social Advocacy: Environmental Conservation, Knowledge-Sharing, and Cultivating a Culture of Wisdom in Northern Tanzania.” http://hdl.handle.net/2142/104917.
Pedelty, Mark. (2020). “Singing across the sea: the challenge of communicating marine noise pollution.” Casey R. Schmitt, Theresa R. Castor and Christopher S. Thomas, Editors, Water, Rhetoric, and Social Justice: A Critical Confluence. Lanham, MD: Lexington books.
The following is a documentary overview of the project near the time of completion. Note: as discussed here, a few objectives were unmet at the time of filming. A few of them, including policy impact, festival success, and planned subsequent production, have been achieved since recording the featured interviews with team members. Nevertheless, this documentary provides a useful window into the methods, theoretical framework, and most of the coproductions generated by project contributors.