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Introducing… When Tomorrow Becomes Yesterday
Singer-songwriter Jo Mango has teamed up with an array of songwriters, academic researchers and sustainability organisations to create the When Tomorrow Becomes Yesterday project.
The project’s aim is to bring together academic, musical, artistic and practical knowledge to imagine a future in a more sustainable world. They will be releasing three download tracks along with a video documentary to help promote the cause.
You can download the first track Better Lands, which premiered on Folk Radio, via Jo's Soundcloud page now.
You can also watch a short video documentary on the new project via Vimeo.
When Tomorrow Becomes Yesterday (Short) from UWS Creative Media Academy on Vimeo.
Mango collaborated with a number of artists (Adem, Louis Abbott of Admiral Fallow and Craig Beaton of The Unwinding Hours), researchers (University of the West of Scotland’s Jo Collison Scott, the University of Manchester’s Angela Connelly, the University of Edinburgh’s Matt Brennan and Creative Carbon Scotland’s Gemma Lawrence) as well as organisations Manchester: A Certain Future and Julie’s Bicycle to create a project that would allow art to explore the emotional connections to nature and create a platform for change.
After working together on a research project called Fields of Green, looking at how the live music industry could reduce its carbon footprint, Jo Mango and a set of Scottish songwriters went on to write a stunning collection of songs (Wrack Lines). This was funded by The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) who then sent out a proposal to put on a festival of events around the country on the theme of Community Futures and Utopias (a Connected Communities Research Festival) that would see different communities using the arts to to explores issues related to their futures.
As a result, Jo Mango then took part in three songwriting sessions - in London, Manchester and Edinburgh - thinking about the future and the challenges that climate change brings. This resulted in three songs: The Ceasing (Jo Mango and Louis Abbott), If I Could Choose (Adem Ilhan and Jo Mango) and Better Lands (Craig Beaton, Louis Abbott and Jo Mango), which were first played at AHRC’s Futures and Utopia Fair in Somerset House, London. Coincidently, this event took place the day after the Brexit result so the atmosphere felt charged and extremely thought provoking.
Climate change is a difficult subject to tackle, which a lot of people find unapproachable or simply choose to ignore it. However, with When Tomorrow Becomes Yesterday, Jo and her collaborators hope to break down that barrier and bring the arts together to explore how we can change the future.