Culture, Climate Adaptation & Resilience

Selected work from the Centre for Reworlding

The Centre for Reworlding is an Indigenous-ld arts, culture, research and advocacy organisation. We work with culture and the arts as methods for rehearsing possible futures, building relationships across sectors and strengthening community preparedness and adaptation.

REFUGE

Arts House, City of Melbourne, 2016–2022

A six-year artist-led programme with the City of Melbourne and Arts House Melbourne that brought together artists, Elders, emergency services, scientists and communities to explore the role of the arts in preparing for and recovering from climate-related disasters.

The REFUGE 2021 documentary, https://vimeo.com/611525829]

• Watch: REFUGE 2021 short documentary

• Case study: Culture for Climate Scotland

• World Cities Culture Report, 5th Edition (2025), see the Climate and Culture chapter

• REFUGE 2017: Heatwave evaluation (PDF)

• REFUGE 2019: Displacement evaluation (PDF)

• Legacy: Exercise Torrent with the City of Melbourne (podcast)

Further reading: All REFUGE videos · Arts House REFUGE page · Refuge: When Art Meets Emergency (Assemble Papers) · Imagining Refuge, Nikos Papastergiadis · Unfinished Business, Jen Rae

Creative Resilience Lab

Our lab format for creative and agile thinking in climate-related disaster preparedness, response and recovery. It was co-designed with Maree Grenfell, Melbourne’s former Deputy Chief Resilience Officer, and first delivered with the City of Vancouver’s Office of Resilience in 2019.

See the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjIVhNM2G9Y]

• City of Vancouver (2019)

• Madison, Wisconsin

• Mount Alexander, Victoria

Global Policy & Evidence

• Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction 2025 (UNDRR, Geneva). Jen Rae facilitated the Platform on Disaster Displacement’s side event Displacement in Disasters: Participation and Innovation for Resilience. Watch · Read the report-back

• Culture Global Stocktake. A global participatory assessment of culture’s contribution to climate action, launched at COP31. C∞R is a Knowledge Partner, and Jen Rae is a core writer.

• Culture-Based Climate Action: Mapping the global evidence from COP26 to COP30 (British Council / KEA, 2026). Jen Rae is a contributor.

Platforms & Networks

• BILYA. C∞R’s relational map of people, projects and organisations engaging with the climate emergency through creative practice.

• Creative Climate. Australia’s national peak body for culture, arts and climate, co-founded by C∞R.

Selected Writing

• Borovica, T., Leong, J., Rae, J. & Hjorth, L. (2025). Ecological Grief, Hope, and Creative Forms of Resilience: A Creative Practice Approach. Open Cultural Studies, 9. doi.org/10.1515/culture-2025-0069

• Santone, J. & Rae, J. (2025). Indigenous Pedagogies in Portage: Intimate and Collaborative Learning to Support Climate Adaptation. In Pedagogical Art in Activist and Curatorial Practices. Routledge. doi.org/10.4324/9781003473800

Contact: centreforreworlding.com · Instagram & LinkedIn @centreforreworlding