Climate CATCH Lab Oration 2025

This year’s Climate CATCH Lab oration, by Angharad Wynne-Jones, Facilitator of Creative Climate, explores how art and culture can support the transformational systemic change we need in response to the greatest public health challenge of our time: climate change. 

Climate change is more than a data point, it’s a public health emergency, disrupting ecosystems, communities and the social fabric that sustains collective wellbeing. The forces behind it – colonialism, extractive capitalism, hyper-individualism – have also eroded the values we need to adapt and thrive. So how do we reimagine the systems that sustain life? 

Angharad Wynne-Jones, Facilitator of Creative Climate, Australia’s First Nations and artist-led climate and arts peak body, is hosted by Professor Kathryn Bowen, Deputy Director at Melbourne Climate Futures, to explore how storytelling, creative research and collaborative cultural practice can reframe climate narratives and expand the possibilities for health and justice. 

You’ll hear insights from four consortium arts organisations working on arts and cultural interdisciplinary projects: Green Music Australia, A Climate for Art, Centre for Reworlding, and Pvi Collective, who are leading interdisciplinary projects that centre care, reweave knowledge systems and engage with ecological repair. 

Join us to explore how collective creativity and cultural leadership can move us beyond metrics and toward systemic change. 

About the orator: Angharad Wynne-Jones

Angharad Wynne-Jones (she/her) is Cymry (Welsh) Australian and lives on the unceded lands of Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung in Naarm (Melbourne). She is Facilitator of Creative Climate, the culture and arts climate action peak body, delivering sector support, engagement, participation and systemic transformation, funded by Creative Australia 2025-2029.  

She is an independent curator and creative consultant following her leadership roles as Head of Audience Engagement at State Library Victoria (2021- 2024) and Head of Creative Engagement at Arts Centre Melbourne (2018- 2021). From 2011- 2017 she was Artistic Director at Arts House Melbourne where she initiated Refuge – a six year publicly engaged investigation into the role of cultural institutions in climate catastrophes.  

She was co founder of Chunky Move, Associate Director of Adelaide Festival, Artistic Director and CEO of London International Festival of Theatre and Founder Director of TippingPoint Australia - energising the cultural response to climate change. She designed and delivered the Cultural Leadership MFA course at NIDA and leadership programs with Creative Australia. She is Chair of Aphids and an enthusiastic planter of Indigenous trees and grasses. 

About the host:

Kathryn is Professor of Climate, Environment and Global Health in the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, and Deputy Director of Melbourne Climate Futures, University of Melbourne. Kathryn is a leading, internationally-recognised expert on the science and policy of sustainability (particularly climate change) and global health issues, with experience in original public health research, science assessment, capacity development and policy advice. She is regularly commissioned by international bilateral and multilateral agencies to co-design solutions for sustainable futures. Kathryn is Director of the Climate Collaborative Action for Transformative Change in Health and Healthcare (Climate CATCH) Lab, and is Stream Lead for International Engagement and Adaptation.