Surge magazine energizes activists, artists

Surge: The Lowcountry Climate Magazine aims to connect readers with the fight for climate liberation by offering locally-focused climate change coverage alongside creative work by artists, poets and writers on the topic.

Surge co-founder Belvin Olasov said that the reason the magazine includes creative elements alongside reporting is to energize activists in their fight, and to provide solace in the spiritual and existential issues that are inextricably linked with the movement.

“Climate activism can’t just be confrontational with doom and gloom,” he said. “It also has to be joyful and celebratory to a certain extent, because the reason we care about these things is that we love our world. The goal is to galvanize folks to action, and to spread the movement wider. I believe you spread movements wider with art, with creative storytelling, with the human elements.”

The magazine was co-founded by Olasov and Sydney Bollinger. Camela Guevara is the art director behind the project.

Both co-founders of Surge share backgrounds in creative writing and climate activism. Bollinger was previously involved with a climate change magazine in Missoula, Mont., called The Changing Times. When she moved to Charleston in 2021, she wanted to create a similar publication and reached out to local activist Olasov. The first issue of Surge was published in March 2022, with two issues released since.

“People were really excited to see it and to tell us that they feel like it helped them learn more about what’s actually going on here, and how they can get involved, which is one of our biggest goals,” Bollinger said.

Olasov is also the co-founder and co-director of the Charleston Climate Coalition, a local climate change advocacy group which came together in the fall of 2019 as a group of citizens rallying for the Global Climate Strike.

“We’ve had a surge, no pun intended, in terms of interest in the climate crisis in the past five years,” Olasov said. “I’ve very much felt this underlying narrative that I think everyone of my generation has felt, subconscious fear and anxiety growing up knowing that there is an impending climate crisis, and yet the world around us is not reacting.

“So I wanted to change whatever I could. It frustrated me that Charleston was not a leader — and that to this day is my motivation — to make the Lowcountry a leader in climate action. Because we have every reason to care,” he said.

Art director Guevara said she chose this work for the cover image because it shows how “precarious it is in Charleston, being located on the coast with all of these floods and storms. To me, it illustrated my anxiety.” | Provided

Multidisciplinary artist and designer Camela Guevara was a natural fit for the role of art director at Surge. Guevara’s visual work explores the intersection of art, craft and fashion, inviting her audience to reconsider their relationship to sustainability. With Surge, she’s flexing her visual skills in graphic design and curation.

Guevara’s design work is “gorgeous, clear and communicative — everything I think you would want in a magazine trying to explain the climate crisis and integrate storytelling,” Olasov said.

Guevara curates work by Charleston-based artists for the magazine and said she is “trying to share this opportunity with other people who are working in a climate focused way” and is always open to learning about artists who are thinking about climate-related issues.

The magazine also features creative writing curated by Hailey Williams, a College of Charleston student pursuing a master’s of fine arts degree in poetry. Williams handles the submissions and outreach for Surge. She called the magazine “an artifact for the movement.”

“I’m a Summerville-born girl, and I have been writing about Charleston in my creative work for a while,” Williams said. “I was pleased that there was a publication emerging related to nature, and to the Lowcountry environment. I was really excited that this was an opportunity for creative writers to share their views. Creative writing is a great outlet for this because we can remark not only on the specific scientific and cultural changes, but we will also be able to share the emotional impact.”

“Seeing poetry and art in Surge, that’s important to us,” Bolinger said. “We are trying to inspire and also provide restful spaces, and I think that’s what that does.”

The fourth issue of Surge will be released in late April, coinciding with Earth Day. The Climate Change Coalition will also host events surrounding Earth Day and its issue release, such as the “Tour de Earth” event, a bike ride eco tour around downtown Charleston. Olasov also teased a fundraiser night with Theatre 99, with details to come later this month.

“I think, in a lot of cases, folks only see the climate consequences clearly in their minds: they know hurricanes, they know rising sea levels,” Olasov said, “but they don’t know how we can reform our transportation systems, our building systems, our waste systems and protect natural environments. They don’t have the picture in their head. And so part of my job, I think, is helping build a picture in their head. And you do that through storytelling.”

To learn more about Surge and the Charleston Climate Coalition, visit charlestonclimatecoalition.com/surge.