Teach Inspire Create Conference 2025: Andri Snær Magnason

We’re incredibly thrilled to announce the third and final keynote speaker for this year’s Teach Inspire Create Conference: the Icelandic writer, creator, filmmaker and environmental activist, Andri Snær Magnason!

Andri’s work stretches far beyond the poetry and fiction we’re familiar with. The themes of his stories, covering climate change and science fiction, are mirrored through his commitment to activism. His books have been translated into over 40 languages and earned him multiple awards, including the Icelandic Literary Awards and the Green Earth Book Award. But his passion for climate action is what sets him apart. His involvement in protecting Iceland’s wilderness and his eulogy for the Ok Glacier are just some examples of how Andri has used his voice to call for change.

At the conference, Andri will bring a unique perspective on intersecting creativity and activism, sharing how storytellers and creative educators can be a part of the change in facing the climate crisis. His keynote will challenge us to think of new ways to teach and create in a world that’s constantly moving and evolving; and how we can lead the next generation to take on the challenges ahead.

We caught up with Andri ahead of the event to get a sneak peek into what he’ll be covering:

Our annual conference is titled ‘Teach, Inspire, Create’. What do these words mean to you personally? What topics will you cover under these themes?

I opened my book with a quote from Baba Diom - “In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.” Teaching and teachers are so fundamental in my life, a good teacher can inspire and guide you into what becomes your life's work. I can draw very direct lines from what I am doing now to certain teachers I have encountered in my life. You do not create out of nothing, you create from a base, from a seed. Good teachers plant this seed.”

How do you approach blending activism with creativity?

My career is rather unlinear, ranges from Sci Fi to documentary film to theater to poetry or non fiction. I call it crop rotation. I felt it was really difficult first to use a cause as material for my art. A good cause is not by default good art. A good opinion is not by default good literature. But then I saw it as a very fundamental artistic challenge. How do you say important things and keep your integrity as an artist. Sometimes the cause can intrude on your work in the same way as product placement works in a film.

I was deeply involved with direct action in terms of protecting the pristine highlands of Iceland from huge dam construction. It drained my resources and my energy, but then I found a way to channel the passion through my writing - and I found I had more impact there. Then there was a climate scientist from Potsdam that asked me why I had not written about climate change - only about the protection of landscape. I told him I did not have authority, I was not a scientist. But he told me that people do not understand data, they understand stories and he was not a storyteller. Not only did I have authority, it might be my moral duty to understand his data and see how it would influence my storytelling.

What is the role of creatives when faced with environmental challenges?

It is nothing less than fundamental. The climate data shows us that we are in a paradigm shift, that everything we took for granted as good practice or business as usual needs to be rethought and redesigned. It so happens that almost every profession today has a potential or urgent higher meaning. If I had gone into fashion or design in the 90s it was maybe just about making cool things but higher meaning was not easily found. We need an urgent rethinking of almost all our systems as the 20th century we have inherited was fundamentally designed in the wrong way. That is a huge creative challenge. Fashion and fashion waste is about 6% of the problem, architecture with buildings and construction contribute to up to 40%, transportation and its infrastructure needs a total rethink, also our energy system our food systems and then of course adaptation - where we are not preventing climate change but responding to the changes. And that is only the tangible part of the creatives, the other is how it shapes how we think about or approach challenges. Amitav Ghosh says: "The climate crisis is also a crisis of culture, thus of imagination."

How can we support the next generation in responding to global challenges like climate change?

I try to turn around the message. It is not very motivating to be raised during times that tell you - "in future we won't, in the future we must not, in the future we must stop. In the future we must reach zero." I turn it around and talk about how urgently we need new ideas and new discovery, new mindset and solutions. When they turn my age we should have reached 100% in clean energy and many of our systems and habits should look like something from the Flintstones. I try to turn it from victimhood and blame on older generations. I think if we only have the choice of becoming zero or voting for "the good old times" - you are likely to go that direction.

When I talk to young people I tell them that they are not essentially unlucky to be born today. It was challenging to be born in Europe in the 40s, also in 1910, and any time before that. We have so much knowledge, so many tools. When I talk to kids I show them a picture of my uncle John with his pet crocodile when he was 10. He knew that the animals he loved were in trouble, so he became a crocodile expert and was already saving their habitats when he was 25, but only because he was inspired at a young age. I think climate anxiety happens when you know about a problem but you have no agency to do things about it. Like being in a car with a drunk driver, we would not call it anxiety if you were freaking out. There are so many tools, so many solutions and so many examples in history that can be used to inspire and give them agency.

What’s next on the horizon for you, and how do you continue to find inspiration?

The climate issue has not quite been solved yet - so I think I will be involved with the issue for some foreseeable time as my book On Time and Water was published in 30 languages. My brain needs crop rotation so I am working on a book that is trying to understand what it means to be alive at times when machines have started to speak and write music.

I have drafts of three books on my table that I am moving forward. And last summer I took responsibility for the families eider down harvest. The eider ducks shed their down and we collect it from their nests after they hatch - it is a win win for both species. We spent a month last year and collected 3kg, enough for 4 duvets. That was quite inspiring!

The Teach Inspire Create Conference 2025 is now less than a month away! Make sure to reserve your free spot now before tickets run out.