Sustaining the Planet and Justice through the Arts and Nursing: Parallel Lives: Creative Health, Climate Change, and Nursing’s Call to Action

Sustainable Healthcare Presentation 25th September

Dr Marion Lynch

Parallel Lives: Creative Health, Climate Change, and Nursing’s Call to Action

Let’s begin with a picture. Not a chart. Not an obs sheet. A mind picture.
Imagine two worlds.
In one world, a child is walking to school with clean air filling her lungs. She laughs, she runs, she trips over a tree root because there are so many trees on her street that the roots push up through the pavement. She goes home that night, breathes easy, dreams big.
In the other world ,same child, same age , except this time she’s walking past the broken fences of Kabwe, Zambia. The most toxic town on the planet. The dust in her lungs isn’t air, it’s poison. The life expectancy is written in years, not decades.
Both of these worlds exist. Right now. At the same time.
And here’s the thing: we live in both.
That’s why I am calling them parallel worlds.
And if you’re a nurse? You feel this every single day. Because we’re not just nursing people anymore. We’re nursing the planet. And we’re doing it in a system that often shuts us up, and  out, of the big conversations.
So… why bother?
Well, that’s what we’re here to answer.

36’5

Take a look at this. Here I am (the one with the shortest shorts because avoiding damp clothes was more important than my keeping my dignity). I am here in New York during the United Nations General Assembly in 2024, I did speak there, and I also stood here.  Instead of speaking with the great and the good, I am standing in th Hudson River in bricks and the mud.
Why? You may well ask.
Artist Susan Sande created an art  work called 36.5. The idea is simple, but the effect? Devastatingly powerful, physical and emotional. Just what any change intervention needs.
Susan goes to a tidal estuary, places where land and sea are constantly negotiating with each other, and she stands……. Alone…… Still. For an entire tidal cycle. That’s twelve to thirteen hours.
She begins with water at her ankles. And then slowly, as it does every day, the tide rises. Up her legs, her waist, her chest. At times she is almost swallowed, only her red hat above the water… And then — the water recedes. She is still there, still standing. Still.
The audience isn’t in seats. They’re gathered on the shoreline, on bridges, even joining on livestream around the world (yes live for the whole 12 hours). They witness her body against the body of the ocean, and they talk about it. They talk about the rising tide and the rising temperatures, and such climate artivism leads to action
I should know, I stood there, only until the Staton Island Ferry wash knocked me down. It reminded me of teaching slow looking in nursing skills, I had to slow down and stay with what I could see and feel and it changed me. This is art as a mirror to what is happening across the world, rising tides are taking away land and livelihoods. The midwives in Pakistan continued to provide care when the floods took away their buildings, babies still had to be born.
How do we as nurses stand in the tide of climate change? Do we face it, ..still, …present, vulnerable? Or do we look away? Not our problem.. I believe it is a problem.

Some powerful people say it is not a problem And this is why Susan Sande’s work matters for us as nurses. Because we know it is, and our 10 million voice can show why it is. We know what it is to metaphorically stand still when the tide is rising. We know that being still, slow and present with a person who just needs your strength, the relational way of knowing in nursing, is sometimes what being a nurse is about. We need to apply that skills to the planet. Nurse resilience isn’t not being knocked over by the ferry wash, it’s about getting back up again, breathing through it, waiting for the tide to shift.

Sande’s work is a participatory art performance that happened on shores across the world. . Nursing could be viewed as a participatory performance too, nursing needs at least two. The arts and nursing are about building a presence, patience, and courage to show or say in a different way. Standing against the tide may be a familiar feeling for you. Standing in the tide showed me that our own health can’t be separated from our planet’s health.

Split-image Collages

To help us see and save the planet through art I will use the split-image collages of Turkish artist Uğur Gallenkuş. His work shows us people in parallel worlds and is being featured this week at the United National General Assembly. It shows people who are the same age. Same humanity. In completely different worlds.
That’s art showing us what data can’t. and it makes us human.
Such activism, or artivism brings statistics about climate injustice, or gender violence, or forced displacement to life.  It brings human responses, feeling in your body, your neurotransmitters showing you are human. It’s the pictures you try to look away from, the story you can’t get away from, the social justice element of nursing we must not shy away from.
And here’s the parallel: Nurses live in that same split-screen. We’re in the ward and world, caring for a people, but we know that the air they breathe outside, the heat waves, the floods, the pollution, all of it, is part of their diagnosis too.
So the question becomes: do we look away? Or do we as nurses lean in?” to make this a wonderful world

What a Wonderful World

What a Wonderful World. it’s ironic, right? What a Wonderful World.

Nine out of ten people right now are breathing polluted air. That’s not wonderful. That’s catastrophic. Seven million premature deaths every single year — linked to air quality.
But here’s the thing: we can change it. A cleaner, healthier future is within reach.
And I know that because I’ve seen both worlds with my own eyes.
I worked in Kabwe, Zambia hearing how nurses are improving care. You breathe in the dust there, you don’t forget it. It sticks in your lungs, and I’m asthmatic. But it also sticks in your heart. And yet… in that same sky, you also see possibility. Because we all share it. The nurses there are caring for a whole generation of children with more needs than can be addressed through health only.

(In) Equity at Sea

Now let’s take this idea of parallel worlds from land to sea.
I want you to imagine three women sailing across the Atlantic. Not a yacht club fantasy. Not cocktails at sunset. Real women, sailors, real waves, real risk. That was me.
In 2024 sailing from Cape Verde to Panama, most of the crew were men.
So there we were. Three women at sea, experiencing some issues to do with misogyny.
Reflecting that gender equality in leadership will take 183 years, probably more at sea.
And wondering if the planet last that long?
And then… a rainbow appeared.
Not a big, bold, Instagram rainbow. A tiny flicker of light. And it whispered: even the smallest can rise.

Rainbow Story

That story became Tiny Rainbow’s Birthday. A children’s book, yes. But also a way of showing how the planet helps us live and breathe, wind, sea, clouds, sun etc, and also a story about how to address inequity.  This is in the footsteps of Angela Hayes and her nursery rhymes.
Speak the words on the slide Come and hear US on 29th September 2025 on Everbrite.

Gender Equity. I Am a Woman

When women are treated equally, they can reach their full potential. We all know that. The data is clear: equality drives growth, strengthens societies, makes communities healthier.
And yet — today, one in three women and girls suffers physical or sexual violence.
So here’s the message: Equality is not a privilege. It’s a human right. And nurses know this better than anyone, because we see what inequality does to bodies, to families, to futures.
And we don’t need to ‘tough it out.’ As someone with power said about pain and pregnancy, this week. What we need is fairness, dignity, and action.” This can be shown through art too.

White Man’s Burden

This artwork — White Man’s Burden by Madeleina Kay  shows us what happens when power and privilege are left unchecked: inequality grows roots.
Every day, we witness the unequal burdens. Women holding up families while their own health collapses. Communities left behind when climate disasters hit. Patients choosing between medicine and food.
And those stories need telling. Now to the trees. Our other ally in health.

Last Tree Standing

Forests. Along with the seas  are our oldest climate allies, the lungs of the planet.
But again — here’s that word — parallel.

Lone Doug

Lone Doug. Vancouver. Stand tall on Vancouver Island, left to be there even though money could have been made.

Lost Tree Sycamore Gap

A gap where a tree used to be. £5000 is all that was worth.
The images and nature of art here is to hold the grief and the hope together. To heal as communities. To replant, to restore, to remember that trees found can be a turning point.

Turning Point – the UK Charity

My visit to a mental health unit showed me how nature is forming part of healing and the trees and the stumps are part of the building.

Why Bother. Bugs and Barcelona

Let’s shift gears. Because urgency has a funny way of sneaking up on us.
Sometimes it’s obvious, like a wildfire. Sometimes it’s invisible, like a virus. And sometimes? It’s a tiny creature with six legs.
Bugs. The bugs are here in the UK, in our trees, more and more bugs since the 1970s. All because of the changing eco structure because of the changing climate.
And the heat is rising. In 2050 it will be as hot here in the UK as it is in Barcelona now

Health and Fractals

Now here’s where it gets fascinating.
Art isn’t just decoration. Nature isn’t just scenery. Together, they literally rewire our brains.
Fractals make us well.
Take colour. A splash of green isn’t just nice to look at — it lowers cortisol. It makes us calmer, sharper, kinder.
Looking at fractals calms us down.
That’s neuroscience
So here  is the question.
 Can the future of nursing be about people AND the planet?

Nerd Thinking

‘Nurse Nerd Bit.’ And I love that, because nurses don’t shy away from being nerdy when it matters. Here’s the model: Ecological Planetary Health.
We need to integrate and the arts can sometimes be the way to make a common language or common vision.

The education bit

To integrate we need to educate. Competence may evolve, if we make them! Somehow, we need to integrate the one health aspects into all of nursing

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Write up

WITH JOHNS HOPKINS,PIECE WRITE 500 WORDS TO SHARE THE PERSON CENTRENESS OF WHAT YOU DO.
Publish short reflections about patient care.
Not research articles. Not policy briefs. Just 500 words.

A single story. A moment that mattered.
And it reaches thousands of people every week. Leaders. Clinicians. Students.
Imagine if more nurses shared their voices there.

Imagine if we as nurses filled that space with our stories of how and why we nurses people and the planet. That’s how you shift from invisible to visible.
And that’s how nursing gets seen in a new way.

Takeaway

The future of nursing is planetary. The education we need is art-infused, and justice-driven.
And it’s already happening. In classrooms. In clinics. In communities. In sessions like this one.
The only question left is: how do we take it further?
That’s where we end today. With a call to action. With an invitation. Be part of the art of nursing, build a critical mass of nurses, nurse voices and nurse wisdom.

STILL LIFE: A STORY OF CORRIDOR CARE
13.01.2025

Is Corridor Care treating people as paintings? These living paintings are not curated and placed there with care, but instead are leaning against walls, facing the wrong way, piled high, waiting and wanting to be seen. Our corridor collections of ‘living paintings’ are becoming part of the furniture, a usual scene, and so, they are unseen. Such a normalised picture of corridor health is distorting our idea of what and where care should be.

Imagine. You are at your most vulnerable and a picture hook becomes your drip hook. You are now hung on the wall, a picture of ill health. How can we accept treating people as pictures? How can we continue to create the conditions where a person is placed in a corridor, labelled and left on a wall, an exhibit of care. The aesthetics of nursing care is about how we use our senses and surroundings to create trust, safety, health, wellbeing and care.

Corridor care is the an aesthetic of nursing care. I cannot imagine the horror of feeling like a piece of the furniture, leaning against a corridor wall, unwell, unclothed, exposed. Corridor care is creating a still life exhibit of real people, real life imitating art. People who are sick, tired and terrified everyone is looking at them, and terrified no one is looking at all.