Posts tagged: Climate Change

Artist in Residence Yan Wang Preston launches OFFSHOOT at RHS Garden Bridgewater.

Join us at RHS Garden Bridgewater to meet photographer Yan, hear about her residency to date – and find out how you can become a ‘Memory Keeper’ for our magnificent 300 year old tree!

Saturday 21 June – 10:30am to 1pm at RHS Garden Bridgewater Learning Studio
£5 entry (refreshments included)

Book your tickets here!

In the historical grounds of RHS Garden Bridgewater stands a magnificent sweet chestnut tree, estimated to be around 300 years old. What vibrant, turbulent and wonderful memories could this tree tell us about our history?  What memories does it keep?

Yan Wang Preston, OFFSHOOT Artist in Residence at RHS Garden Bridgewater plans to create an artwork to honour the sweet chestnut’s life, and to retrace and explore its preserved memories – with your help.

On Saturday 21 June 2025 – the summer solstice – Yan will launch the project and host the first memory-collecting event at RHS Garden Bridgewater.

Yan will be in conversation with Josh Corbett, Bridgewater’s arboriculture team manager and self-proclaimed tree enthusiast. They will discuss their respective roles as artist and arborist and focus on how to look after woodlands for the future.

Yan will then present the star of the show, the sweet chestnut, before explaining her idea behind the Memory Keepers project. Anyone who wishes to take part will join a raffle, where each person will be randomly assigned a year between 1720 and 2020.

If you would like to join Yan’s project and become a ‘Memory Keeper’ you will be invited to write a short story (5-10 sentences) inspired by your given year. It does not need to be connected to the tree and can be about any historical event that happened that year, anywhere in the world.  

For inspiration you will go home with a beautifully designed folder containing a blank sheet alongside Yan’s photos of the tree  and 19^th century images too. You can then submit your short story in a stamped addressed envelope addressed to Salford Museum and Art Gallery.

We will gather stories over the next six months, and our Memory Keepers’ stories will eventually form a collaborative artwork celebrating the enduring presence of our sweet chestnut tree. 

This will be exhibited at Salford Museum and Art Gallery in 2026/7. Memory Keepers is both a talk and a participatory event. Submitting a story is entirely optional.

OFFSHOOT Artist in Residence programme is a collaboration between University of Salford Art Collection, RHS Garden Bridgewater and Open Eye Gallery Liverpool and is generously supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Limited places left – please book here.

Next month, Hybrid Futures: Making, Showing and Collecting Art in a Time of Climate Crisis, will be hosted in Salford. This symposium will see a day of activity and conversation around the ambitious three-year hybrid Futures project. 

What are the environmental issues currently facing museum collections, art galleries and artists? 

Is it possible to make your work more sustainable in the visual arts sector? 

How can arts organisations and their local communities work together to influence change?

Is there the potential to test ideas and new ways of working in order to create a robust and effective model to change the way that galleries should operate in the future?

Join us and our Hybrid Futures partners, along with the Hybrid Futures artists (Shezad Dawood, Jessica El Mal, Parham Ghalamdar & RA Walden), commissioners, local authority staff, funders, community members and consultants, for a day of conversation and activity; sharing our learning and exploring together actions our sector can take to create enduring and effective models of sustainable practice for galleries and museums.

You will leave having met like-minded colleagues and equipped with practical knowledge and encouragement to make changes and take action. 

 Book your place at the symposium here.

Speakers & Conveners Announced! 

We’re delighted to share with you some of the names who will be a part of the day’s programming on the 10th of May. 

Speakers and convenors:

Kit Abramson, Collective Futures, Creative Producer; Paulette Brien, Grundy Art Gallery; Rachael Burns, Touchstones Rochdale; Danny Chivers, Hybrid Futures Sustainability Advisor (Gallery Climate Coalition); Helen Cooper, Senior Manager, Philanthropy/Visual Arts, Arts Council England; Claire Corrin, Salford Museum and Art Gallery; Shezad Dawood, Hybrid Futures lead artist; Paul Dennett, Salford City Mayor; Mark Doyle, Touchstones Rochdale; Jessica El Mal, Hybrid Futures artist; Parham Ghalamdar, Hybrid Futures artist; Mishka Henner, Artist in Residence at Energy House 2.0, University of Salford; Matthew Pendergast, Castlefield Gallery; Rowan Pritchard, Exhibition Coordinator, University of Salford Art Collection; Emily Speed, Artist in Residence at Energy House 2.0, University of Salford; Lindsay Taylor, University of Salford Art Collection; RA Walden, Hybrid Futures artist (via video link), Kate Wafer, Hybrid Futures Evaluation Consultant; Helen Wewiora, Castlefield Gallery.

There is also a Marketplace where you can meet relevant organisations to get the latest information and guidance. Participants confirmed include Museums Development North, The Carbon Literacy Project, LANDS (Lancashire Arts Network for Developing Sustainability), GMAST (Greater Manchester Arts Sustainability Team), University of Salford Sustainability Team, and SPARK.

Want to know more about Hybrid Futures so far? Visit the Hybrid Futures website for more information on the Symposium, the Hybrid Futures partners, artists and exhibitions, case studies & resources. You can also now read all the reflections from the Collective Futures community engagement project. 

Emily Speed, currently Artist-in-Residence with Energy House 2.0, discusses sustainability and her practice with Castlefield Gallery in the most recent addition to their ongoing series Spotlight: Artists and Sustainability.

Click here to read the full interview on the Castlefield Gallery website, where Speed discusses how her work relates to issues of climate change, the ways she works more sustainably in her artist practice, and her thoughts about the role of arts and art institutions in tackling the climate crisis.

Emily Speed was awarded the second of two 18-month artist residencies at Energy House 2.0, in partnership with Castlefield Gallery, Manchester and Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool in early 2023 and she is currently engaged in research, working closely with the Energy House Labs team.

The Energy House 2.0 Artist Residencies are hosted in partnership with Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool and Castlefield Gallery, Manchester.

Both residencies have been made possible through funding from the Friends of Energy House 2.0 Community: energyhouse2.salford.ac.uk/friends-of-energy-house-2-0/ 

We are delighted to share that we’re bringing Hybrid Futures, a new group exhibition exploring sustainability and the climate crisis, to Salford, launching in March 2024 at Salford Museum and Art Gallery.

Bringing together all the work from across the Hybrid Futures project, you’re invited to join us to celebrate the exhibition launch on the 21st of March.

Exhibition Launch: Hybrid Futures

5-7 PM, Thurs 21st March 2024
Salford Museum and Art Gallery

Open to all and free to attend, refreshments provided.
RSVP here: https://salfordmuseum.com/event/opening-hybrid/

A prayer room, water and dates will be made available to anyone observing Ramadan. Want to attend earlier? We will be offering a quiet hour ahead of the exhibition launch. Please contact Rowan Pritchard if you would like to attend from 4 pm.

Hybrid Futures is an ongoing partnership project from Castlefield Gallery in Manchester, Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool, Touchstones Rochdale, University of Salford Art Collection and Shezad Dawood Studio exploring collective and more sustainable ways of working.

Marking one of the final phases of the 2-year project, the exhibition brings together the new works co-commissioned for Hybrid Futures from Shezad Dawood, Jessica El Mal, Parham Ghalamdar and RA Walden, each exploring universal threats of climate change, informed and inspired by their own perspectives and backgrounds.

Also featured is the wider work of the project including Collective Futures, a test bed community engagement programme and the findings and recommendations of Hybrid Futures’ Sustainability Advisor, Danny Chivers whose work has been integral to the project and the partners.

More to come from Hybrid Futures:

• Interested in the behind-the-scenes of the project? The exhibition will be accompanied by a national symposium on 10 May 2024, where learning from Hybrid Futures will be shared. Find the booking and full programme details here on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/837365973167
• Alongside the exhibition at the Museum, two additional works by Hybrid Futures artists Parham Ghalamdar and Shezad Dawood will be screened at the New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery, University of Salford, to coincide with the exhibition. Part of the Gallery’s art film season – showing works from the University Art Collection with an international focus – Birds or Borders by Ghalamdar screens 18 March – 3 April, and Leviathan Cycle, Episode 1: Ben by Dawood screens 10th – 24th April – visit the UOSAC website for full details.
• PLUS: A new exhibition by RA Walden will open at the Grundy from 20 April – 15 June. Object transformations through the coordinate of time is a solo exhibition of newly commissioned and existing works. Spanning sculpture, installation, text and moving image, the works in this exhibition mark and measure the passing of time. Drawing on reference points as varied as, quantum physics, the ecological crisis, ancient timekeeping and the life cycle of worms, Walden is asking us to consider time at both a macro and micro level. More specifically, as an artist with lived experience of a disability, RA Walden also uses their work to explore and express non-normative experiences of time. From sculptures made from hacked office clocks to texts that ask who and what defines, ‘work’, Walden’s exhibition also provides a poetic meditation on lives and bodies whose timekeeping does not conform to the supposed ‘norm’.

Find out more about the Hybrid Futures Project:

Visit the dedicated Hybrid Futures Microsite to explore the exhibitions so far, learn more about the artists & partners, and read about the work of Collective Futures now.

Hybrid Futures, a multi-part collaboration focusing on climate, sustainability, collaborative learning and co-production between Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, Touchstones Rochdale, University of Salford Art Collection and Shezad Dawood Studio, and generously supported by Arts Council England and Art Fund with additional funding from Henry Moore Foundation.

? Download the full press release here.

RSVP – Thursday 8th of February 2024, 6-8 PM

OPEN EYE GALLERY

19 MANN ISLAND, LIVERPOOL WATERFRONT, L3 1BP

LOOK Climate Lab is a biennial programme exploring how photography can be a relevant and powerful medium for talking about climate change. The Open Eye Gallery has been transformed into a lab: bringing together researchers and artists to collaborate, test their ideas, and encourage audiences to discuss systematic changes needed for dealing with the climate crisis.

The exhibition is open now! However there is a private view and launch alongside the We Feed The UK project on the 8^th of February, 6-8 pm. Come along if you can!

Featuring Stephanie Wynne, Nazar Furyk, our artist in residence at Energy House 2 Mishka Henner, John Davies, Mario Popham, Johannes Pretorius, Hellen Songa, one of our previous Graduate Scholars Lizzie King, and Gwen Riley Jones!

RSVP and find out more through the Open Eye Gallery website – link below!

LOOK Climate Lab is partnered with Gaia Foundation, Energy House 2.0 Salford, Royal Horticultural Society, The Tree Council, Impressions Gallery, Peloton Liverpool Coop, Wigan Council, The Mersey Forest, Liverpool ONE and many others to bring people and ideas together, explore the complexities of human-nature relationships and make positive changes to live more sustainable and connected lives.

Photo credit : Rob Battersby Photography

Following on from 2021-22 where the Art Collection took home a platinum Green Impact award after participating for the first time in the University-wide Green Impact Scheme, this year for 2022-23 we are delighted to share that we have once again achieved a platinum Green Impact award for our ongoing sustainability efforts. 

Green Impact is a United Nations award-winning sustainability engagement programme, run internationally by SOS-UK. Throughout the year, organisations across the globe work on sustainable actions in the Green Impact toolkit, each worth either 5, 10 or 15 points. 

By completing actions worth over 500 points throughout the year, the Art Collection team has achieved a second Platinum award. Actions undertaken this year have included completing an energy audit with Marta Strzelecka, University Sustainability Engagement Officer and continuing to reduce single-use plastic and make sustainable swaps where possible across our work; swapping out bubblewrap for re-usable silver stiffy bags as recommended by the Gallery Climate Coalition, and continuing to use ecoboard over foamex and vinyl in our exhibition signage and materials. 

In addition to day-to-day actions, our Green Impact submission this year also included our wider thematic work around sustainability, including the ongoing Energy House artist residencies and the Hybrid Futures programme. 

For our Hybrid Futures‘ work, particularly around the Collective Futures collaborative engagement programme, we were awarded the special Community Action Award. Collective Futures brings together individuals, invited by the Hybrid Futures‘ partners for their perspective on the climate crisis. Connecting around Hybrid Futures’ ongoing activity, the collective is collaborating to explore new ideas, possible solutions, and examples of creative work that has made an impact in local and global communities. With each member able to both bring their interests, experiences, and insights and share the group’s work back out to their communities, the collective is already proving a fruitful site of collaboration and sharing. 

Additionally, Lizzie King was awarded the Student Leadership Award for her work on Sustaining Photography. MA Contemporary Fine Art student Lizzie has co-developed Sustaining Photography with socially-engaged photographer Gwen Riley Jones as an exhibition and programme of engagement for fellow students and the public, showcasing and promoting plant-based alternatives to traditional toxic photographic methods. If you would like to find out more about Lizzie’s work on Sustaining Photography, click here. 

Art Collection Team Sustainability Champion, Rowan Pritchard shares: “Once again we are so pleased to be recognised for our ongoing sustainability work. From day-to-day activity to our overarching thematic focuses, working sustainability has come to underpin everything we try to do at the University of Salford Art Collection. It has been great to take part once again in Green Impact, and to see and celebrate all of the brilliant sustainability work happening across campus.” 

Find out about all of the teams who participated in Green Impact across the University PLUS read more about the Green Impact programme on the University’s sustainability blog, here. 

Throughout November, artist Lizzie King and Socially Engaged Photographer Gwen Riley Jones have been sharing recipes and reflections from their project Sustaining Photography.

Sustaining Photography is a project led by Lizzie and Gwen, exploring and promoting plant-based and sustainable alternatives to traditional photographic processes. 

You can read all four blogs, including recipes for anthotypes and 35mm film developer from Gwen and Lizzie and find out more about the project here: Sustaining Photography

Sustaining Photography has been funded by the Salford Advantage Fund and The University of Salford Art Collection.

Artist Lizzie King shares why working on the Sustaining Photography project is important to her. Lizzie King is a former Graduate Scholar with the Collection, and is currently studying for her MA in Contemporary Fine Art at the University.

As artists, as makers, as creators there is a journey that results in us adopting processes or ways of making.  We take these processes into our vernacular and use them to describe ourselves, to define our way of practising. The list of these words seems endless: documentary, abstract, commercial, photographer, image maker, artist, content creator… and the list carries on. They don’t just define ourselves but how we are different from others. How about the word ‘ecological’ or ‘eco’ or ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ or ‘climate aware’? How does this define a maker? How does this mark a difference between one maker and another? In this day and age should these words really be something we can define or differentiate ourselves on? 

My journey towards using greener processes has been born out of a continual curiosity about alternative photographic processes. Years experimenting with different versions and iterations of caffenol (coffee based homemade developer) recipes showed me the extent that these recipes could be pushed to. The thought of the impact that the standard photographic chemicals were having had never particularly crossed my mind until I started to try to make developers from plant matter.  As I explored the possibilities  of using plants in the creation processes and their unique compounds and properties that make particular developers work so well, I started to think about how working this way was really allowing my work to talk about the environment while also being kinder to the environment. I use these plant based processes because I am fascinated by being able to use a wide range of materials in making my imagery. The experimentation and the time spent outside looking intently at nature brings me joy.   

The United Nations recognises that we are in the midst of a climate emergency. There is clear guidance from scientists that the world (let’s be honest, the world’s riches countries) needs to act now to be able to see a change from the current trajectory. What does this look like for our practices? At the end of the day this is about working in a way that is aware of ourselves, our precarious stance on earth, how we are intertwined with the earth. As Timothy Morton puts it, “We are all burnt by ultraviolet rays. We all contain water in about the same ratio as Earth does, and salt water in the same ratio that the oceans do. We are poems about the hyperobject Earth.” (Morton, 2013) 

Our society has done everything it can to see nature as other to who we are rather than accept the reality that we are a part of nature. Can we really afford as a community of makers to have a small grouping of makers who are ‘sustainable.’ Can we progress to a stage where it is common understanding that everyone’s practice is as sustainable as possible?   

Many people say ‘there is no green way of doing this’, ‘Photography is never going to be sustainable’ and ‘The only way to do it green is to not do it at all’. This is not about stopping making. What I hope you get from this zine is that we have choices. We’ve presented a few options for different processes you could adopt. You can choose to make these your own. They might open up a new creative avenue for you.  You might find that making something using an alternative greener process gives you a new aesthetic that you’ve been looking for or a new way to relate to the world around you. Perhaps these processes aren’t for you but reading this can start to raise the question within your way of working: how can I do this better? 

I don’t think I have ever written a piece of writing with more questions in it, but the fact is we don’t have all the answers. Analogue photography has a long history of toxic chemical output and unsustainable mining from the earth. Digital photography has problems with mass server usage for storing on the cloud on top of the precious materials being mined from the earth to create the high-tech equipment. Being aware is the first step to being able to change our ways. I hope that the future will see makers discover more sustainable ways of producing what we make. This is all about producing what we do but better. 

Sustaining Photography is a collaborative project by Lizzie King & Gwen Riley Jones to connect and engage students at the University of Salford with sustainable photographic processes, using produce from the University’s Community Growing Space. The project is based at The University of Salford and has been funded by the Salford Advantage Fund and The University of Salford Art Collection.

Click here to find out more.

Socially Engaged Photography Gwen Riley Jones, shares why she wanted to work on the Sustaining Photography project.

In 2019, The British Youth Council declared the climate emergency the “biggest issue facing young people”. This headline is taken from the Planting for the Planet exhibition, held at RHS Garden Bridgewater in 2022. In this exhibition, I worked with young people from Action for Conservation to explore nature-based solutions to climate change. Through the process of collaborating with, and learning from, a group of young people to make images for the exhibition, my creative practice changed forever.  

We were making work about nature-based solutions to climate change, so I wondered, are there any plant-based photographic techniques? Turns out there’s loads. 

As soon as I started to learn about it – it made total sense – plants create energy using light – they are light sensitive, they contain pigments that adapt and change with changes in light intensity. My mind was blown, I was hooked. 

But what hooked me in deeper was that I could suddenly create photographs in my kitchen at home. The process is safe and non-toxic, even edible, and I could create anthotype paper at home in my kitchen whilst I made my daughter’s breakfast. I’ve been a photographer for 20 years but setting up a home darkroom has always felt like too big a task – for many reasons, not least, toxic waste. 

Perfection in the imperfection. 

It is a parody of the industrial world that in searching for photographic perfection, faster shutter speeds, sharper images – steps towards the sublime – we have created a toxic world. Maybe the perfection is actually found in the imperfections, in these green pictures which will fade to nothing when left out in the sun.  

And from here, well it makes you wonder, if we don’t need to use these harmful substances, why do we? 

So I now work with sustainable photographic processes almost as a metaphor for sustainable practices, sustainable lives. As a way of starting a conversation – if we can do this using only plants – what else can we do using only plants? 

I grew some beetroot, made anthotypes out of the juice, film developer out of the peelings, and pickled the beets to eat for lunch. You don’t need much money and you certainly don’t need perfection. The beauty of this process is in the imperfection, and the accessibility of the practice.  

So we invite you to join us: pick some spinach from the community growing space (but also make sure you join in and plant some more!) make some anthotypes, cook a curry, use the vegetable peelings to develop your film, ask some new questions. 

Share the spoils of your practice with those around you. Put up a picture, pass on a plate of food, share your experience. And let us know what else you decide to do differently.

Sustaining Photography is a collaborative project by Lizzie King & Gwen Riley Jones to connect and engage students at the University of Salford with sustainable photographic processes, using produce from the University’s Community Growing Space. The project is based at The University of Salford and has been funded by the Salford Advantage Fund and The University of Salford Art Collection.

Click here to find out more.

Over the course of the year, current MA student and past Graduate Scholarship recipient Lizzie King, and socially-engaged photographer Gwen Riley Jones have been working together on Sustaining Photography.

Sustaining Photography is a collaborative project to connect and engage students at the University with sustainable photographic processes. Lizzie and Gwen have been working together throughout the year to grow produce in the Community Growing Space and explore how these can be used to create plant-based alternatives to traditional photographic methods, which use harmful chemicals.

Now Open!

An exhibition showcasing the collaborative artwork Lizzie and Gwen have created during the project so far is now on display in the University’s Community Growing Space. Alongside the artwork, you can see the produce being grown, and find recipes they have developed for the plant-based photographic methods they have used to make the work.

Feeling Inspired? You can now get involved in a series of events being held as part of the wider Sustaining Photography exhibition. The events programme includes artist talks from Edd Carr and Tamsin Green, photography workshops, and portfolio reviews for current students. You can find the full details of each event here.

The Sustaining Photography project is based at The University of Salford and has been funded by the Salford Advantage Fund and The University of Salford Art Collection.