On Another Panel About Climate They Asked Me To Sell The Future

I based this painting on a powerful poem by a young climate activist and poet, Ayisha Siddiqa:

What if the future is soft and revolution is so kind that there is no end to us in sight.

Whole cities breathe and bad luck is bested by a promise to the leaves.

To withstand your own end is difficult.

The future frolics about, promised to no one, as is her right.

Rage against injustice makes the voice grow harsher yet.

If the future leaves without us, the silence that will follow will be an unspeakable nothing.

What if we convince her to stay?

How rare and beautiful it is that we exist.

What if we stun existence one more time?

When I wake up, get out of bed, my seven year old cousin with her ruptured belly tags along.

Then follows my grandmother, aunts, my other cousins and the violent shape of their drinking water.

The earth remembers everything,

our bodies are the color of the earth and we are nobodies.

Been born from so many apocalypses, what's one more?

Love is still the only revenge. It grows each time the earth is set on fire.

But for what it’s worth, I’d do this again.

Gamble on humanity one hundred times over

Commit to life unto life, as the trees fall and take us with them.

I’d follow love into extinction.

——

Ayisha Siddiqa is a 24-year-old Pakistani-American climate justice and human rights advocate from Coney Island, New York City. She is the co-founder of Fossil Free University and PollutersOut!  She calls herself a storyteller and uses poetry as a form of protest. She read one of her poems about climate justice at COP27 and she was one of TIME’s Women of the Year in 2023. 

In Robin Jones’ “On Another Panel About Climate They Asked Me To Sell The Future,” two young girls sit back-to-back before the textured trunks of towering trees, their gazes turned to the viewer, subtle, knowing expressions on their faces. 

A vibrant dragonfly hovers between them, while a pair of ravens frame the composition from the sides, symbolizing the girls’ intrinsic connection to the natural world.

This evocative painting stands as a vibrant, captivating work of art that prompts reflection on our role in addressing climate change and fostering a conscientious, enlightened relationship with our environment.