Arts and research: Shaping climate action

The climate crisis is without doubt the most pervasive challenge we face today. Among those leading creative responses and knowledge generation and inspiring participation are our universities and our arts. Together they are producing a wide range of collaborative projects, many of which involve diverse publics in their realisation.

We are seeing a purposeful and rapidly accelerating array of arts and research-led initiatives, many designed to engage young people and wider communities. These projects take different forms and span many thematic areas.

They can be hyper local or global in focus, ranging from brief, highly focused events to much longer-term collaborations. What they mostly have in common is to make climate and environmental issues more tangible and relatable, invite participation, foster awareness and inspire action. There are countless examples.

Here are just a few:

• Collaborations between arts companies and researchers: e.g. Cap-a-Pie Theatre’s The Vanishing Act about earth’s disappearing insects has been developed in collaboration with researchers from Newcastle University.
• Artists-in-residence schemes: Sound artist Hayley Suviste is working with the Acoustic Laboratories at  University of Salford on the River Irwell – once known as the ‘hardest worked river in the world’, drawing together narratives of industrial heritage, ecological resilience and cultural significance, in the face of ongoing challenges around urbanisation and pollution.
• Imperial College’s Grantham Institute’s annual Climate Art Prize incentivises young people to make murals to help ‘raise awareness of the climate crisis and inspire those who pass to take action’.

Increasingly we’re also seeing multiple universities involved in the same arts project. Soundings, a film installation by artist Emma Critchley, explores deep-sea mining for minerals from the seabed and its ecological, geopolitical and cultural impacts.

It has been supported by several university-based arts centres including The Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts at Sussex University and the John Hansard Gallery, part of Southampton University. An accompanying Rights of the Deep Text was supported by Science Gallery London at King’s College London.

Ambitious collaborations

These entanglements of arts, research and funding and their flows from and into public cultural life are inspiring in the stories they tell and the potential they hold for ambitious future collaborations.

As Paul Heritage from People’s Palace Projects (PPP), an arts research centre based at Queen Mary University of London, attests: “Arts and research have a powerful synergy in shaping climate action: research provides evidence and frameworks to inform policy, while the arts humanise these narratives, making them emotionally resonant and accessible. At PPP we’ve long believed in the power of the arts and research working hand in hand to inform climate policy and energise community-led action.

“Together, they can amplify marginalised voices and mobilise communities in ways that data/research alone cannot. By translating research into creative forms – performances, visual arts, storytelling and participatory projects – the arts and culture can help frame policy debates in ways that speak to both decision makers and the wider public, while research can give credibility to the cultural narratives driving action. This interdisciplinary approach allows for the creation of new imaginaries and more inclusive strategies for adaptation and mitigation.

“With COP30 taking place later this year in Brazil – a country at the heart of both the climate emergency and home to immense cultural and ecological diversity – the opportunity to foreground Indigenous knowledge, ancestral practices and creative expression is more urgent than ever.

“Yet the challenge remains: dominant development models continue to marginalise ancestral knowledge and creative expression. For arts and research to truly shape climate justice, they must be embedded in collaborative, decolonial and community-rooted processes.”

Cultural reforesting

Andy Franzkowiak, who run the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames’ Cultural Reforesting initiative, says: “The climate emergency needs stories to help navigate its complexity and to focus on real places and people. The arts give space for expanding people’s ability to respond to it.

“Cultural Reforesting, a project we set up five years ago, has supported 25 artist-led research projects during that time, all responding to the provocation, how can we renew our relationship with nature?  

“Our current exhibition showcases work that has been developed through conversation and collaboration between artists and researchers. Artist Andrew Merritt has been working with ethnobotanists Dr Sarah Edwards, University of Oxford and Dr Raj Puri, University of Kent on the lost knowledge of plant species in our ecosystems. Academics from University of Liverpool and artist Bryony Ella are convening fora to discuss urban heat, and to explore storytelling as an energiser for action.”

‘Everything change’

At Invisible Dust’s outstanding Under Her Eye: Women and Climate Change conference back in 2018, Margaret Atwood spoke eloquently about the power of educating women. As a writer she knows full well the power of words. Her statement “This isn’t climate change, it’s EVERYTHING change” is powerful, easy to remember and one our global leaders would do well to embrace.

This November, COP30 will take place in Brazil. People’s Palace Projects will be there, alongside other figures from the arts and research. Like Atwood, Marcele Oliveira the Youth Climate Champion of COP30, speaks in words that cut sharp and deep.

“What the climate agenda needs most today is to mobilise people to shout about the magnitude of the crisis that the territories are experiencing. So, if we need to introduce new policies and engage people in action, what is the most effective way to speak to a lot of people at once? This is only possible through the arts and culture.”

With thanks for contributions from Paul Heritage, Yula Rocha, Thiago Jesus and Andy Franzkowiak.