The evolution of pollen

The idea of pollen started bubbling in the early June of 2022. I was in Sheffield, where I grew up, and sinking into a long summer. The goal was to create a storytelling platform which encouraged more personal explorations of the climate and nature crises. Highlights of pollen’s first season include the creation of a gallery on our former website, contributed to by artists including lizmnk and Alicia Van Den Abeele , and holding a stand at the Lotus Nova Festival in London. As Autumn neared, I moved to Paris to continue my studies. Here, the project relaxed into itself. My mind drifted to pollen often and the website became an outlet for ideas and writing, reflecting on events through a pollen lens.

Thinking back, I realise that pollen embodies a state of mind for me. pollen is about finding peace and bliss within nature whilst processing the depth of the damage caused by certain human activities. pollen is about togetherness and mutual support through honest conversations. In this sense, it isn’t possible to show the entirety of pollen on a website and, whilst I have come to love recording and sharing moments where the spirit of pollen feels close to the surface - it is sometimes better to simply let them be, and ripple on, perhaps leading to something else that will be recorded later down the line.

When pollen emerged, its tone was decidedly angrier. I was writing as if I was speaking directly at those who stifle progress and drive destruction. Now, I feel those acts of distraction, and damage are no less heinous. What is different, however, is the way I chose to metabolise the realities of the capitalist, self-terminating system we find ourselves in.

With time, I came to understand that pollen is about taking the climate and nature emergencies personally and learning to love environments which we know to be depleted. pollen wants to understand how things became so broken and to seek beauty in the process of imagining a fairer future. pollen exists to resist the urge to force every thought into words and instil the idea that we all have something different, strange, and beautiful to feed into movements for ecological defence.

Now, pollen is growing from Scotland where I live with my partner George who recently started to contribute his writing to the project. I hope that the project starts springing up in new places, meeting new people, and becoming rooted in their lives in ways yet to be imagined. For me, today, pollen is about processing the changes, the bleakness, and the spaces for serenity that dance between. Where that leads to exactly, I don’t know. pollen has grown to be one of my greatest loves. I hope others will say the same in years to come. Recent months have felt promising. The philosopher, and fellow Rights of Nature activist, Håkon Evjemo launched a series of articles on the legal personality of oak trees on the pollen site, and the Embassy of Nature invited me to speak at an event during the Paris Olympics about pollen, and how it has changed the way I communicate about these entangled matters.

I am humbled by the way others have reacted to the project and look forward to the next leg of the journey. Thanks for being here already.