Storm-Cloud: Observations of the Sky

“This wind is the plague-wind of the eighth decade of years in the nineteenth century; a period which will assuredly be recognized in future meteorological history as one of phenomena hitherto unrecorded in the courses of nature”

This contemporary staging of John Ruskin’s prophetic public lecture ‘Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century’ (1884) is performed and directed by Dr Tom Payne, with motion design by Jake Goodall, photography by Becky Payne, original composition by David John Brady, illustration by Billy Hughes and Penny McCarthy, dramaturgical focus by Terry O’Connor, digital media production by Anne Doncaster and Richard Mather, and archival research by Ashley Gallant.

Ruskin’s controversial lecture highlighted the disastrous results of nineteenth-century industrialisation, the human role in climate change, and the effects of air pollution, ‘a plague-wind’, on our health.

This unique version of Ruskin’s lecture introduces Storm-Cloud, an interdisciplinary arts-led programme of climate-focused research, performance, and exhibition.