What inspires someone to act on climate? For many, it’s not a chart or a statistic. It’s a song. A story. A piece of art that strikes something deep and human.
This was the heart of the event Creating Change: The Power of Art in the Climate Movement + A Creative Workshop during SF Climate Week, where scientists, artists, and storytellers gathered to explore the emotional pulse of the climate crisis—and how the arts can help us feel our way through it.
Our AskNature Director, Camilo Garzón, joined the conversation as a panelist, bringing both his personal creative practice and his work at the Biomimicry Institute into dialogue. He spoke about his experience leading Cuentero Productions (a multimedia production house experimenting with interdisciplinary storytelling practices) and about AskNature’s growing efforts to engage audiences through multimedia and creative exploration.
But Camilo’s role didn’t stop at the panel. In the second half of the session, in the company of Alfaaz’ founder Karan Rathod, he helped guide participants through a biomimetic poetry workshop, inviting them to draw inspiration from nature’s strategies, specifically from three biological strategies found on AskNature.org. From water-harvesting leaves to the jackrabbit’s temperature-regulating ears, these strategies became poetic portals into resilience, reciprocity, and reflection.
Camilo’s own poem, Rosette, was inspired by the biological strategy “Leaves Capture Water From Fog.” With imagery both tender and turbulent, it mirrors nature’s quiet brilliance in adapting to scarcity. The poem imagines fog not as something to be feared, but as something to receive with care, with intention, with an openness to transformation.
“How can the fog fly in, caress us all,
not engulf us and encroach us,
but cleanse me and rinse you?”
Rosette reminds us that ecological or emotional healing doesn’t come from force, but from flow. From boundaries that protect, and openings that allow connection.
This blending of science and spirit, data and feeling, is central to what AskNature stands for. By weaving art into biomimetic solutions, we are inviting more people into the conversation and offering new ways of seeing, feeling, and hoping.
As the biomimicry movement grows, so must its forms of expression. Art doesn’t replace science, it roots it in the heart. And, from there, real change can take hold.
Want to explore biomimetic inspiration for your own creative practice? Visit AskNature.org to browse nature’s solutions, and let them guide your next story, poem, or project.
Rosette
Inspired by Leaves Capture Water From Fog
By Camilo Garzón
The waxy layer brims out,
and as it travels towards me
with its old friend, fog,
it doesn’t drown.
And it dashes,
as it crashes,
I frown.
As it flows, it reminds Rosette
to withdraw. Don’t forget,
little one, it’s time to pout.
They, the water capturers, cry,
thinking of the library of the future.
Because they know,
that the marine friends
vapor and cloud,
will fog their way
here from Arcosanti,
for us to receive it
and with it—we’ll pry.
Funnel the energy, let it flow back in,
this time, and find my back against the wall.
How can the fog fly in, caress us all,
not engulf us and encroach us,
but cleanse me and rinse you?
Collect, clean, and store it up.
Remove the moisture from the air,
velut nubes, quasi naves, velut umbra.
If I am aware of you
as you are aware of me,
and as plants have feelings,
can I let this fog wind
all its way down to me,
and wash it all away
as it cries with me?
And with them, I feel.
I can let this fog
wash over me
and I absorb
with my leaves
as it cries with me.
A leafy reminder
in a time of uproot.
That barriers, that boundaries,
sometimes get enacted,
so that the water doesn’t flow out.
Jen Fredette is the Digital Communications Manager for the Biomimicry Institute and its initiatives, blending her expertise in web and graphic design with a passion for storytelling and strategic communications. A graduate of The University of Montana with a degree in Communications, Jen believes that nature holds boundless wisdom for a thriving and sustainable future, a perspective that fuels both her work and her way of life. Learn more about Jen and the rest of the Institute team here.
