Question Time will be:

• Discussing climate change with as wide a spectrum of people in Copenhagen as possible

• Exploring a conversational approach to climate change based on anecdote, neurotic behaviors, misunderstandings, and gossip.

• Holding a participatory public summit at the end of each day during COP15.

• Working towards an alternative statement  for the future.

Question Time is a series of 1000 interviews, conducted throughout Copenhagen during the UN COP15 conference, towards an alternative statement of the way forward on climate change. In a context of inter-governmental debate and negotiation, Question Time explores an alternative approach to climate change based on anecdote, neurotic behaviors, misunderstandings, and gossip.

Question Time involves four UK artists, ranging in mood from the mildly neurotic to the apocalyptic, looking to discuss climate change with as wide a spectrum of Copenhagen residents as possible, mapping its presence in the individual and collective psyche. Each day, parallel to the conference, the four artists will conduct a series of programmed and random interviews across the city – in cafes, conference centres, parks, street corners, shopping centres, museums, universities, and domestic residencies.

Initially, the questions will be our own – formulated as a pack of 30 playing cards, dealt out in ever new combinations at the start of each conversation. But, of course, each encounter will bring new (mis-) information to light. So each day ends with a public summit at which the days discoveries are presented, and the next days questions are formulated. In the manner of the COP15 itself, we will each day use the material we have collected to formulate a statement on climate change and the way forward for us, Copenhagen, and the world.

These summits will be open events, held in various locations around the city, with a feel that combines performance, seminar, poetry reading and a shared meal – an alternative, convivial, artists led version of the discussions taking place at COP15. The unfolding statement will appear online as a series of podcasts, adapted with new material daily. The accumulated questions will map a web of concerns and also provide a score for future research projects into the area of climate change.

Question Time will conclude with a final summit, to which all participants will be invited to share in a final declaration. The final event will also launch the next stage of the project, where each artist develops their own project – be it performance, exhibition, event, or written text – from the archive of material collected throughout COP15.