With the understanding that the Climate Crisis is deeply entwined with other ongoing injustices and struggles, Space Saloon and Creative Migration hosted a safe, comfortable and non-judgmental space to verbally confront the topic of Solastasia, the paralyzing melancholia induced from environmental distress.

During Field Workshop, hosted at the Institute for Contemporary Art Los Angeles (ICA LA), we prototyped the Climate Crisis Hotline. Similar to a confession booth or wishing well, our multi-faceted platform sought to validate individuals’ concerns and give everyone an opportunity to participate in a community dialogue. Through a variety of outreach and engagement methods we invited members of the public to connect, unwind and respond.

It is our intention to collate this ongoing research and feedback into a live-archive; both our ‘behind the scenes’ office and immersive archive of voices will form an experimental tableau of collective aural expression.

For five days, we conducted daily workshops both in person and remotely. Each workshop helped formulate questions, devise content, and conduct exercises about language surrounding eco-anxiety and environmental distress. Prominent environmental scholars and psychologists joined the dialogue to address the growing nomenclature of eco-anxiety. The purpose of the gatherings were to co-create the hotline’s structure, format and script by week’s end, when the hotline went live on KCHUNG Radio.