PEOPLE TO MEET: LILLE MADDEN, ARTIST AND EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVIST
It runs in the blood. Her mother is the brilliant art curator Hetti Perkins and her sister is the actor Madeleine Madden – together they are ambassadors for Halfcut for the Amazon and part of Seed Mob, the Indigenous youth climate justice organisation.
We are in a climate crisis. How are you using your voice to urgently help effect change?
“Aboriginal people have sustainably looked after this land for millennia and are now not only one of the worse affected by climate change but also have done the least to cause it.
“I am a volunteer with Seed Indigenous Youth Climate Network and am Seed's Sydney coordinator. Along with many other young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, I help plan campaigns, organise volunteers and educate others, so that we can create a movement towards a just and sustainable future.”
If you had to write five words or fewer on a protest banner, what would they say?
“First Nations is the answer.”
What are your hopes for a better future?
“Together with Seed Mob we are fighting for a just and sustainable future with strong cultures and communities, powered by renewable energy. Climate change is one of the greatest threats facing humanity, but we also know it is an opportunity to create a more just and sustainable world.”
What do you want the Australian government to do most urgently?
“Give our First Nations peoples a seat at the table, ban fossil-fuel extraction and do something, anything, rather than your inaction to address that we are in a climate emergency.”
What are your thoughts on the “Greta effect”?
“The 'Greta effect', I hope, shows people that when we work together, we can create change.”
What is the most important thing you have taken away from your Heron Island experience with the Climate Council?
“What I saw and what I took from my trip to Heron Island was how fragile our ecosystem is and how badly our actions, as well as our inactions, are affecting our home, our country, our people and our future.”
How has this translated into your work and life?
“It has made me see more clearly what needs to be done and where to strike the hardest.”
by Alison Veness
Photographed by Alice Wesley-Smith on Heron Island.
From Issue 15 of 10 Magazine Australia.
