Digital Letters to the Earth

Writing to a Planet in Crisis

This series of short digital ‘thought pieces’ were inspired by Gaia, The Earth, an artwork created by pioneering British artist Luke Jerram, being the result of a collaboration with IF: Milton Keynes International Festival.

The artwork is a large-scale inflatable sculpture of the planet, measuring seven metres in diameter, and featuring 120dpi detailed NASA imagery of the Earth’s surface. Gaia brings focus to global environmental challenges and provides the opportunity to see our planet on a large-scale, floating in three-dimensions and features music and voices including Sir David Attenborough’s.

Luke Jerram’s Gaia aims to create a sense of the Overview Effect, which was first described by author Frank White in 1987. Common features of the experience for astronauts are a feeling of awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment. 

I hope visitors to Gaia get to see the Earth as if from space; an incredibly beautiful and precious place. An ecosystem we urgently need to look after – our only home. Halfway through the Earth’s six mass extinction, we urgently need to wake up, and change our behaviour. We need to quickly make the changes necessary to prevent run away Climate Change.

Luke Jerram on Gaia

Prof Shonil Bhagwat, FASS, Open University, speaking at the Gaia exhibition in Milton Keynes, 2021

Writing a letter to the Earth: engaging the heart through the arts

The concept of the thought pieces is inspired by the Letters to the Earth project which has been calling out to the public since 2019 to write a letter in response to the climate and ecological emergency. As a result, thousands of letters of love, loss, hope and action have been written to our planet in crisis. Read more.

The Gaia letters were created from each contributor’s informed, professional, academic perspective, by Open University researchers in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) and the School of Social Sciences and Global Studies (SSGS), and their collaborators. Contributors recorded these letters in short films which were part of the digital engagement programme produced to complement the presentation of Gaia in Milton Keynes.

Alessandra Marino

Research Fellow, and interdisciplinary researcher working in geography and astrobiology at The Open University. Her research explores how space technologies are used in international development.
Watch Alessandra's letter on YouTube.

Dan Taylor

Lecturer in Social & Political Thought at The Open University, whose research spans contemporary political theory and the history of political thought, with a focus on British politics and cultural studies.
Watch Dan's letter on YouTube.

David Humphreys

Professor of Environmental Policy at The Open University, where he teaches and researches at the interface of geography, environmental politics and international studies.
Watch David's letter on YouTube.

Daze Aghaji

Climate Justice Activist and a member of the Extinction Rebellion Movement. She has recently completed her undergraduate studies in History and Politics at Goldsmiths University in south London.
Watch Daze's letter on YouTube.

Carry van Lieshout

Lecturer in Geography at The Open University. She is a historical geographer interested in interactions between people and their environments, as well as the geopolitics of water and subterranean resources.
Watch Carry's letter on YouTube.

Samuel Shaw

Lecturer in the History of Art at The Open University. His research interests include museum history and the formation of the modern art market, 19th Century ecocriticism, and the intersections of art and natural history.
Watch Samuel's letter on YouTube.

Monica Grady

Professor of Planetary & Space Sciences at The Open University, whose research is focused on understanding the solar system, through the study of meteorites, asteroids and comets.
Watch Monica's letter on YouTube.

Anthony Nanson

Storyteller and writer, whose books include Storytelling and Ecology (2021) and Storytelling for a Greener World (co-editor, 2014). He is also the publisher of the ecobardic small press Awen Publications.
Watch Anthony's letter on YouTube.

Shonil Bhagwat

Professor of Environment & Development at The Open University, whose research engages critically with environmental concerns in the areas of agriculture and food security, biodiversity and conservation, ecosystem services and sustainability.
Watch Shonil's letter on YouTube.

Maria Nita

Lecturer in Religious Studies at The Open University, where she teaches and researches on topics intersecting religion and climate activism.
Watch Maria's letter on YouTube.

Bill Gee

The Festival's Creative Director. Also Co-Artistic Director of the Inside Out Dorset festival and producer - through his company, BGA Projects - of site-specific and creative commissions, often in the outdoors and public realm.
Watch Bill's letter on YouTube.