Bonn Blog June 2025

by | Oct 4, 2025 | 0 comments

Anne-Marie, Lucy and Ruth attended the Bonn Climate Talks in June 2025 to deliver Walk With Walking Forest, The Honouring Cloth and Seed Gifting. The context was the annual ‘midyear’ meeting point for 6,000 delegates preparing for the COP30 talks in Belém, Brazil in November. Such preparatory meetings are known as SB’s (Subsidiary Bodies) – in this case SB62. This is where quieter work gets done between all the198 countries signed up to the ‘Convention of the Parties’.

Discussions include climate finance, adaptation, mitigation, low emission technologies, resilient food systems, gender equality actions, carbon accounting and health. An underscoring narrative is of inequality and injustice as Global North countries are responsible for 86% of cumulative emissions that exceed safe planetary boundaries*. The talks can be overwhelming to any novice observing them. The stakes are high, there’s little time and many complex calculations, as myriad ‘themes’ are weighed up as countries do (or don’t) submit their own work to reduce emissions – computed as NDCs (Nationally Declared Contributions) towards a liveable climate.

It becomes easier to follow the voices that call to you: those of the youth climate justice movement; of women and of indigenous communities. In this respect Bonn proved an inspiration: hearing from so many of these formally marginalised communities and voices, now appearing on climate talk panels with narratives gaining moral authority, volume and urgency in the build up to Brazil.

The November talks will be hosted within the Amazon rain forest, one of the world’s hugest, living ecosystems, and under the mantle of an indigenous concept of ‘mutiråo’ – an indigenous term for ‘a collective effort’. At a talk led by the President Designate Ambassador André Correa do Lago, his call stirred us, along with the invitation to all civil societies and grass roots communities to ‘come as you are: do what you can’.

Our Brazil anticipation was added to by the June 17th announcement that of the 30 Objectives for COP30, Objective 19 would include: culture, cultural heritage protection and climate action under ‘Axis 5’ of a Just Transition to Foster Human and Social Development.

Our stay in Bonn was hosted by the Bundeskunsthalle (the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany devoted to art, culture and science) and, after visiting these talks five or six times between us, we felt at home for the first time in both climate and culture spaces. We were also working in partnership with youth activists and organisers from the international Entertainment and Culture Pavillion and returning again to the Bonn Climate camp.

Walk With Walking Forest

Having never seen the venue in our lives before, Walk With Walking Forest was to be researched, designed, resolved and rehearsed within the 24 hours following our arrival by train from London – Brussels – Køln. The first evening we arrived we made an exploration into the territory – a main road along the ‘museum mile’, a subway to the underground ‘U-Bahn’, a pedestrian crossing and an 8 min walk, as the crow flies, towards the World Conference Centre, home of the UNFCCC and climate talks, located to the East along the River Rhine.

In the gloaming, led very much by the presence of trees in green spaces between and amongst buildings and along the streets, we started to feel excited about creating a ‘looping walk’ (to be repeated 3 times) that took participants from the Bundeskunsthalle to the UN buildings – and back again. The respective sites were a mere 500 metres away from one another, but worlds apart.

Connecting the culture space of the gallery to the geopolitical space of the World Conference Centre, we’d create space for encounter, reflection, inspiration, connection with nature and the cultivation of courage. We’d be exploring tree ecology, female-led climate activism, creativity and care. Two of us would lead the walk in turns, whilst one of us stayed with The Honouring Cloth in the Bundeskhunstalle ‘Salon’.

Next morning, we met with a gallery curator, our host Miriam Barhoum, in the courtyard café and the set up base in the ‘Salon’. After 40 years of gestation, the iconic venue designed by architect Gustav Peichl, had opened in 1992 with light and shade combining in all directions – a remarkable interplay of indoor and outdoor spaces. Nearby, the outdoor installation Vert had giant hammocks attached to a roof like trellis with greenery growing towards the sky.

We needed immediate answers to questions about the health of trees we had seen in Bonn: what species were being planted for a future hotter climate? Why were so many horse chestnut trees in trouble? Miriam got onto Thomas Påtzold (Abteilungsleiter) the city tree officer for answers, as we set off to investigate our route more fully.

Responding to the features of the built environment and trees that drew us in we devised a ‘score’ or ‘script’: a fragrant, blossoming Indian Bean Tree; an empty water feature; small oak seedlings still attached in the ground to their acorns; a hidden story of a C19th Ecuadorian revolutionary called Manuela; young saplings by the conference centre wilting in the heat and a pavement perfect for ‘chalking’.  In amongst wide avenues named after ‘important men’ – Willy Brandt,  Helmot Kohl, even Winston Churchill, our walk route felt revelatory and real. 

At 11am the next day, we were ready to greet and welcome participants in the Salon, and with Walking Forest accessories – bags, bells, pinecones, blankets, cardboard signs, portable speakers and staff – we were off. 

People introduced themselves to each other walking in pairs and trees that held significance for them. Then across the traffic lights, to discover the hidden story of Manuela Saenz, lover of Simon Bolivår, the South American liberator from Spanish colonialism. She was buried in a paupers’ grave, yet credited as the real revolutionary. This was a moment to acknowledge women’s hidden histories; an invitation to link arms with someone you did know – one facing forward, one facing backward – and consider looking back at the past and forward into the future. Alternating directions as we walked, this was a simple, human, trusting action that was beautiful to behold. We’d entered a different dimension of time and space. 
A stop by the oak tree to observe what could be seen of a tree’s generative cycle; hearing about the Walking Forest story and the pine tree of Rose Lamartine Yates, and Suffragette Arboretum, and onto the dried up fountain where stories were exchanged of extreme weather events. Onto the Indian Bean tree where, in the cool shade, you were invited to lie beneath a dappled canopy and consider the movement of energy and light in the tree as well as the similarity of blood and chlorophyll molecules in human and tree species, filling each with life as we breathed together.

On our feet again, as we left the ‘civil’ space behind to enter the more politically charged spaces of the UN and global climate talks. To bear witness to the charged, intensity of such territory, we recounted the activist launch of Culture Declares Emergency in London 6 years earlier in April 2019, a network we helped initiate. We’d brought a soundscape with us by Mira Calix, played on small bells and portable speakers, that supported participants to walk slowly together with a role of raising the ‘alarm’ and able to face into the challenges of the climate and nature crises.

It felt special to step into the road and feel that people that had come that day to walk, be curious, listen and learn were now in a small way creating an art action themselves as we walked in silence along, holding signs high and with bells ringing. Once outside the UN buildings, we stopped to share short statements from the verbatim performance Pause to Survive which was created during the MEMBRA UK Treescapes project .

“…the trees are not regenerating…
the young ones are dying..
alarm bells are ringing…
the small trees, there are less and less of them..
we are in crisis right now, we are past change, we are into crisis…”

We were standing in sun, under young trees, clearly not in good regenerating health.

We spoke aloud the things we were losing and acknowledged the need to name our grief – not to turn away as we were also talking about the things we loved, and that that can spur us into action.

We’d arrived at a key moment in Walk with Walking Forest, outside the doors of the World Conference Centre, where on each walk, a leading light in the youth climate justice movement came out to join us and tell us what was happening in the building and what their own role in the talks was. In turn we were met by  Pooja Tilvawala (Climate Youth Collaborative), Gunjan Nanda (Entertainment and Culture Pavillion) and Veena Balakrishnan (Co-founder of the Youth Negotiators Academy, helping to train country teams of young negotiators).  They each made the talks imaginable and human for those that had never had cause to engage with them. They shared details about why they were at the Bonn climate talks, their own goals and objectives and also what kept them going – working for changes they may never see in their own lifetimes. All spoke of a deep sense of care, a belief in justice and a sense of responsibility. Those already familiar with the talks expressed gratitude for the ‘pause to survive’ they received from the walk and its reflections.

We reflected Vanessa Andreotti’s concept of walking ‘a tightrope’ between naive hope and complete hopelessness, before taking rest next to a wild flower bed and listening to the words of Claire Charlo from Climate Action Network (also present in the talks):

‘We need to be with the land, be with the water, be with the mountain and give back.’

 Seated, we engaged in drawing what could be seen and cherished immediately close by, attaching the drawings to the Walking Forest staff, before setting back to the Bundeskunsthalle.  

We wrote in chalk on the walkway of the Heussallee beneath the failing chestnut trees, the one thing we wanted to protect, defend and care for. As the Suffragettes had done in their day, this was a simple, effective communication strategy for those passing by on their way back to the World Conference Centre for the world we wanted. As we passed under the avenue of trees, we heard the words of Bonn’s Tree Officer, Thomas Pätzold, about the city’s planning for street tree planting adapting to climate change, extreme heat and drought.
More familiar with each other now than at the start, we made our way back to the cool of the gallery’s courtyard and gathered back in the shade outside the Salon and in one last circle declared the one thing we were taking from the walk. Between us we’d embodied: connection, courage and friendship.

 

The Honouring Cloth

Meanwhile, in the Salon, a large screen showed the Walking Forest film from Coventry City of Culture with comfortable seats that people could relax into. Laid out in the main part of the space was the Honouring Cloth, a large linen tablecloth, dyed with oak bark, and salvaged from a Devonshire hotel. The Honouring Cloth hosted embroideries either complete or in part created by people in several different countries including having already visited Bonn on two previous occasions. This year the Honouring Cloth was to be set up all day in The Salon and the following day to be stitched at a workshop at the Bonn Climate Camp – a pop-up ‘camp’ on the edge of the Climate Talks – a democratic space bridging civic society and open for all. This warm and welcoming space, in the park alongside the River Rhine was hosted by members of the climate justice movement.

 

Along with needles and hundreds of strands of thread in a delicious array of colours, the Honouring Cloth invitation is to stitch a being from the wider natural world that holds a place of significance for each person or to complete another person’s being as an act of continuation. Within moments of opening, the Salon had three male visitors who had never sewn before, and began to conjure from thread an ant, a wild boar and a single cell being. With care and over a few hours, they stitched in a gentle rhythm of conversation, occasional laughter and shared silence.

 

Soon other visitors arrived – several staying for hours with some re-visiting us the next day at the Bonn Climate Camp. People young and old shared ideas, stories and knowledge as the Cloth filled with colour and form. The gentle rhythm and calm focus of the stitching offered a welcome counterpoint to the busy nature and mind-flexing of the talks. We slowly revealed the story of Walking Forest to those who were curious and the fact that the Honouring Cloth would take centre stage in the opening evening of our Intentional Woodland in 2028. Witnessing how quickly and easily people could settle into dedicating time and focus to expressing their relationship with the wider world was an honour in itself.

 

Seed gifting

For the last six years we have been gifting seeds from the last remaining Suffragette Tree, that has inspired the Walking Forest Project, to delegates attending COP gatherings especially delegates and activists from the Global South and Indigenous communities. In Bonn this year we honoured two of the incredible youth activists that met us on the walking loop outside the UNFCCC buildings to share their work and insights; Gunjan Nanda (Entertainment and Culture Pavillion). We also gifted to Hafar Al-Beltaji one of the convenors of the Bonn Climate Camp. The camp is a home base for many of us at the climate talks. It stands for climate justice in all dimensions including feminism, decolonisation and anti-imperisalism. Workshops, meetings, shared meals take place here and as well as organising this every day Hafar is also inside the conference centre speaking and organising and mobilising people focusing on climate justice. In these individual intimate seed gifting ceremonies we thanked and acknowledged the work that these incredible youth climate champions have already done and we weave them across time to the tree planted 100 years ago by Rose, a young Suffragette, who was fighting for change. Just as they are doing today, she did not know whether she would see change take place in her own lifetime. As we gift them the seed we offer them connection with the past, grounding the present and courage to face the future.

A few days after returning from Bonn, Ruth was part of hosting the COP presidency Global Mutirao team at a gathering at the Globe Theatre on the last day of London Climate Action Week. At the end of this day Ruth seedgifted to another remarkable young woman, Marcele Oliveira, a Brazilian climate youth activist who has been named the Presidency Youth Climate Champion for COP30. This role will see her leading efforts to engage youth in the upcoming COP30 Climate Conference in Brazil.

Unlikely to attend the talks so far away in Brazil, we plan nevertheless to return to Bonn in 2026.