paff is a new organisation, led by Suzanne Stallard and Andrew Darnton. 

Suzanne is an artist, activist, and founder of Jelly, an arts charity working in Reading since 1993. Suzanne’s work is embedded in her community: she was born in Reading and her personal life experiences have enabled her to work across diverse communities, working with marginalised and disenfranchised people. Suzanne believes that art has the power to start conversations, to amplify voices of communities and has devoted over thirty years of her life to building community connections through making art. She has followed her own path, steering Jelly through varying circumstances and locations,and in 2023 Jelly was made a National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) by the Arts Council. 

Andrew is a social researcher and change practitioner; who has worked with governments across the UK, as well as with third sector organisations, and voluntary and community groups. Andrew has worked on public engagement with climate change for 20 years, including writing and testing messages to communicate the issues with people in communities across Wales. It is from experiences like these that he has taken the view that to develop an inclusive, just and authentic response to the climate crisis, a new conversation is needed, and it’s not a climate conversation.

The idea of paff first emerged in 2021 when Suzanne and Andrew went to COP 26 in Glasgow in a green van, as producers and performers with Ocean Rebellion. Suzanne and Andrew had originally met in 2019 while performing with the Red Rebels for Extinction Rebellion. They went on to form Ocean Rebellion, an artist-activist collective which has delivered protest performances at COP 26 and at UN Ocean Conferences. paff is a response to their experiences of calling on governments to take substantive action on climate – and the failure of governments to do so. The meaningful discussion at COPs or UNOCs is outside the designated Blue and Green Zones, where people from around the world come together in the street. 

paff has been slowly evolving through collaboration over time. It has been shaped by input from a diverse group of friends and colleagues, including artists, directors, consultants, and community organisers. As well as subject expertise, these people bring learned and lived experience within the vulnerable communities paff will be working with. As a group they are predominantly non-white, & female. These friends of paff have agreed to form a formal Advisory Group, who will come together for the first time at the Codesign Retreat.