Eco-activism through art - 3rd November 2021

Country heads, environmental campaigners and protestors are gathering for the COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland. This conference is an invitation to countries to assemble and work on the planet’s most urgent issue of climate change.

As conference members arrived, German artist Arnd Drossel turned up inside a 160 kilogram steel sphere that he had welded together. His 1,500 kilometres journey is to show that we’re all connected and must work together to tackle global warming.

Arnd Drossel: "I am an artist and make this 'promise walk' from Germany to Glasgow to the COP26, about more than five, 1,500 kilometres inside of this sphere. Walking and show people we are feeling connected. We can feel connected when everyone gives a promise to our future, to our children's future and of course to Mother Earth."

Ahead of the event the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) announced that the last 7 years have been the warmest on record and that we can expect more devastating weather events if we do not reduce global warming.

Drossel’s long journey took him three months as he stopped along the way to discuss sustainability with everyone from children to Lord Mayors.

Arnd Drossel: "All around the world we have the same problems but also the same chance. When climate changing is – when we take care about our future. And that’s why I did walk just three months long."

For Drossel his “promise walk” and the connections he has made hold meaning. He also values the support he has received. All of this plus the need to stop and repair his sphere regularly have been a metaphor for how we must tackle climate change.

Arnd Drossel: "Nearly every second day, I have find a welding space, a workshop to repair it. But that’s how it is in life. We have always have to take care and repair our own life situation and to repair our nature and to repair the contacts with other people because sometimes it’s not so easy."