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Drag queen Pattie Gonia, Alaskan musician Quinn Christopherson, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma teamed up in 2023 to jot down and carry out “Gained’t Give Up.” Filmed in Alaska towards a backdrop of melting glaciers, the music video is an anthem crammed with hope and a promise to by no means hand over within the combat to sluggish local weather change and save the glaciers.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Yale Local weather Connections: Quinn, are you able to begin by telling me what impressed you to get entangled in local weather activism?
Quinn Christopherson: With local weather activism, I’m all the time questioning, “What can I do?” I all the time really feel so small within the grand scheme of issues and [we’re] attempting to vary such a giant factor, and so actually, it comes all the way down to “What are my largest strengths and what can I supply?” And it’s all the time music and writing and songwriting and spreading consciousness and making artwork. And for those who didn’t take into consideration local weather earlier than, perhaps I can assist you.
Yale Local weather Connections spoke with Pattie Gonia and Quinn Christopherson in regards to the venture and the way they convey pleasure to their local weather activism.
YCC: And what makes artwork such a robust conduit for that?
Christopherson: For me, artwork is a method to attain large audiences that you simply wouldn’t be capable to attain by simply speaking to folks. [Art] could make folks take a look at one thing otherwise or change their perspective, and my favourite [medium] is songwriting. In order that’s how I focus.
YCC: So Pattie, inform me just a little bit about bringing music into your local weather activism and why that’s an essential a part of your work.
Pattie Gonia: Music was my first inventive love. Nothing makes me really feel the way in which that music does, and I feel that nothing can actually translate messages the way in which that music does. I feel music turns into part of our life, music can change into anthems, and I feel the local weather motion wants extra anthems. I feel that artwork has the ability to open minds. Artwork isn’t telling you this or that. Artwork is an invite. And so I like that, and I like music, and I like creating music with wonderful folks like Quinn and Yo-Yo.
YCC: So, inform me just a little bit in regards to the idea and the way you all got here collectively and what it was like collaborating.
Christopherson: Pattie needed to jot down a track for the local weather, and she or he had every kind of concepts, and I feel it began out as saying goodbye to the glaciers as a result of they’re melting. And with my songwriting, I’ve all the time tried to type of flip issues round and take a look at it from a unique perspective. And so we have been sitting collectively, and I mentioned, “What if we didn’t say goodbye? What if we didn’t hand over?” And that’s actually the way it began — the primary line of the track [is]: “Properly, I’m not going to say goodbye”— and we went from there.
Gonia: I feel the three of us are essentially the most unlikely trio on this planet, however it makes a lot sense. I feel all of us love artwork that claims one thing, and all of us like to create collectively. And I feel in relation to the local weather motion, we want extra collaboration. I feel that we consider our greatest concepts after we suppose collectively.
Similar to Quinn mentioned, this track began out as a requiem for a glacier. It began out as actually a part of a funeral procession for this glacier and glaciers around the globe which might be dying. However then … it’s really actually highly effective to not hand over. It’s actually highly effective to combat when the world desires you to cease and to give up. What’s potential if we preserve going? And whereas the realities of local weather change are actual, so are the chances and the options, and I feel we all the time must keep in mind that. We will step up, we will combat again, we will work collectively. Local weather change is the most important challenge we’ll ever face in our lifetime, however it’s additionally the most important alternative to make and construct a unique future.
YCC: Are you able to speak about that pressure of being overwhelmed by local weather change but in addition the enjoyment of coming collectively?
Gonia: What’s the purpose of a revolution for those who don’t dance just a little bit, for those who don’t sing just a little bit? So I feel pleasure is revolutionary — I feel that pleasure and collaboration and happiness in local weather is what we want extra of. If we need to make work round local weather sustainable for the lengthy haul, it has to incorporate pleasure, it has to incorporate celebration, it has to incorporate collaboration and sharing of one another’s cultures and artwork kinds. There’s nothing higher — I would like extra of that.
Christopherson: And in addition, it’s nature. It’s actually onerous to be unhappy in nature for me.
Gonia: I like what you mentioned, Quinn. It’s a lot tougher for me to really feel depressed after I’m out in nature, particularly after I’m out in nature with buddies and with neighborhood. It jogs my memory why we’re preventing for what we’re preventing for.
YCC: So inform me just a little bit in regards to the location for the music video.
Gonia: We shot in just a few completely different areas up in Alaska, and nearly all of them have been websites the place glaciers are receding, and receding at a speedy charge. And one location we have been filming at, there was nothing there. There [were] simply rocks and a river working by means of it, and even 10 years in the past there was a glacier there. However one of many glacier websites, Holgate Glacier, the place we filmed the primary half of the video is definitely the place I scattered my dad’s ashes. And my dad’s from Alaska, and he died just a few years in the past [of] mind most cancers, and I took him up there to put him to relaxation. And so, to be again there and to be making artwork there and to be beginning a brand new chapter in my life there felt actually highly effective.
I feel one of many largest classes that I took away from this expertise in Alaska and from my friendship with Quinn is that Indigenous folks don’t see people as separate from nature. There’s a whole lot of this Western and colonized world that likes to separate people from nature, however actually, we’re part of nature — we aren’t other than nature. And my dad is part of this little inlet the place this glacier is now. And I’ll someday be mud once more, too, and all of us can be, and so what are we going to do with this very transient and valuable second the place we will make a distinction? Are we going to make use of it to create a symbiotic relationship with this world?
Christopherson: After we have been there, we have been simply listening to this glacier calve and watching it, and it’s simply falling into the ocean proper in entrance of our eyes. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen earlier than. I’m indigenous to Alaska; I’m Ahtna, Athabaskan, and in addition Inupiaq. I grew up in Alaska, and it’s a particular place, and irrespective of how a lot of Alaska I see, it by no means ceases to amaze me.
YCC: Might you discuss to me just a little bit about a number of the different stops that you simply made and the work that you simply did throughout this journey?
Gonia: Properly, we will’t go someplace and never throw a freaking drag present. So, we threw a drag present for the neighborhood up there, and we had [about] 400 folks present up for it and obtained to do it as a fundraiser for various Indigenous-led and female-led nonprofits within the space, and we raised [about] $66,000. And it was simply such a blast to get to fulfill a lot of the neighborhood which might be actually change-makers and are doing this work each single day.
Christopherson: There was a [workshop] that Yo-Yo was [involved with] and he wrote a track [about salmon] with an entire bunch of youth and so they all carried out it collectively. And we obtained to listen to it for the primary time after they carried out it. After which we obtained to carry out our track for the primary time collectively as a trio on this actually intimate setting. It felt actually healthful and like we have been speculated to be there.
YCC: What is going to every of you are taking away from this entire expertise of working collectively?
Gonia: I feel I’ll take away that the most effective work I’ll ever do in relation to local weather work can be collaborative. And I feel the most effective factor that may occur from a venture like this, and from any pursuit round local weather, is new connections and new friendships, new relationships that aren’t one-off tasks, however are actually lovely relationships to form a lifetime. I really feel like when work round local weather could be rooted in that, it’s completely different, it’s particular, and I feel it has essentially the most influence.
Christopherson: I take away that collaboration and artwork is essential. And I all the time felt that, however it felt actually obvious with this track and this work. And I actually consider that when all people brings of their true self and their largest power right into a venture, that’s once you’re going to make the most effective factor ever. And that’s precisely what we did. Yo-Yo did Yo-Yo. I did Quinn, and Pattie did Pattie, and that’s it. No one else might try this and that’s an important factor to me.
YCC: What do you hope individuals who hear the track take away from it? What do you hope is the influence of this?
Christopherson: I didn’t know what I needed folks to remove from it at first, however because it’s been out and seeing all of the suggestions and what persons are getting from it, there’s a lot pleasure. And other people preserve saying they wanted this proper now, and it doesn’t matter what we’re all going by means of, this can be a little blip of pleasure that folks can discover. We wrote it for the glacier after which we give it away, and it’s up for you all to resolve what it’s about for you. That’s highly effective for me.
Gonia: I would like folks to sing this with different folks, sing it at local weather rallies, make this the anthem that they want it to be. I would like each single particular person, irrespective of who they’re, to make use of the items of their identification, and the issues that they’re good at, and apply it to what they care about on this world. I feel that’s how we make a unique world. or anybody that’s queer, for anybody that comes from a unique intersection of life, make the most of that in your local weather work. For anybody who has a particular expertise on this one inventive discipline or this one actually distinctive material, we want you. Each single motion wants an accountant. Each single motion wants artists. Each single motion wants bridge builders. Use what you’re good at and apply it to what you care about, and this world won’t ever be the identical.
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