By Emily Cracknell
This Earth Day, CO2RE launches innovative art projects to showcase the potential of Greenhouse Gas Removal. From breath-activated bio-luminescent algae to peatland performance pieces, CO2RE Artists are creating a diverse range of projects to engage the public in the potential of Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR).
The UKRI £220k backed-initiative, supports a portfolio of projects across the UK that will expand the public’s understanding of GGR. From the 46 applications who applied for our arts’ funding, 11 applications were short-listed for interview, and seven artists were selected to develop their projects. The chosen artists shared skilfully curated, diverse projects in a variety of media, which we’re excited to share as they evolve. These include: a residential film school, an animation, VR interactive landscapes, a sci-fi podcast series, biochar sculptures and a land art piece, as well as a bio-luminescent algae installation and a performance piece in the peatlands.
“When we began planning the initiative, we were hoping for a few applicants to fulfil the call. We had no idea the scale, depth and breadth of the project proposals we would encounter, and that this initiative would sweep across the arts world with much needed messages of hope.”
Natasha Martirosian, Flexfund Manager and Research Associate at CO2RE
Our hopes for CO2RE Arts expand beyond the projects we’ve funded, as CO2RE believes science and engineering, including their conceptualisation, design and delivery, as well as innovations that follow, are cultural practices. Meaning that artists, creative practitioners and the arts and humanities have a key role to play in their delivery. This initiative will help bring those contributions together to move forward our understanding and use of Greenhouse Gas Removal.
“Ultimately, we hope that this work serves as a replicable template for future partnership developments, and make the case of future funding opportunities to weave the Arts into research and widen dissemination of knowledge to our communities.”
Natasha Martirosian, Flexfund Manager and Research Associate at CO2RE
The seven artists, based across the UK, will use their different approaches and creative disciplines to bring a broader arts and humanities perspective to GGR. Alongside working closely with environmental scientists to better share the potential Greenhouse Gas Removal methods have for a net-zero future, many of the artists will being working closely with the wider public. The series will culminate with an exhibition in 2026, as well as public engagement events.
Climate change is a threat to both human well-being and planetary health- the window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all is closing rapidly. Greenhouse Gas Removal is an essential tool for reaching net-zero, yet it is not a readily understood climate mitigation strategy. These arts project seeks to increase public understanding and engagement with the possibilities and potentials of Greenhouse Gas removal, and the hope they can offer for a better future.
CO2RE Arts Projects:
Studio Blue Green– Algal installation
Phycologica: A bioluminescent algae installation activated by visitors’ breath, that will illustrate algae’s potential to remove, and store, carbon from the atmosphere. The interactive installation will help conceptualise the process, showcasing the exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen, through sight, scent, touch and sound.
Participants will be invited into a liminal space, where their breath is absorbed by the algae array, activating a shimmering cascade of carbon, in a magical interaction visitors will see how we’re all entangled in an unseen world, and inter-dependent. Studio Blue Green hope to spark participants’ imagination for a hopeful multi-species future, and to share the potential of algae as a GGR solution.
Workshops will be run alongside the installation and learning about working will algae in installations will be shared and documented. A ‘designing with Algae’ tool kit to encourage creatives to draw from it as a medium will be generated.
Ben Weaver-Hincks – sci-fi podcast series
Pathways: A Possible Futures Podcast, a sci-fi audio series that will feature five alternative futures exploring Greenhouse Gas Removal, delving into the ethical dilemmas, power-dynamics and societal inequalities that shape their use.
Crucially, each episode will include characters engaged on the front line of climate action, including greenhouse gas removal through novel technologies, soil carbon sequestration and ecosystem restoration.
Billie Ireland – Sculpting Biochar for Creative Greenhouse Gas Removal
Billie Ireland’s project seeks to increase understanding of GGR, and shift perceptions of carbon from being a pollutant to an essential element in our efforts to address climate change. She will create a series of large-scale biochar sculptures, as well as land art, incorporating ritual and reverence, to widen engagement and understanding of biochar and GGR, the soil and climate.
James Price – Residential documentary film-school
James Price’s project, Ffilm School will give access to documentary filmmaking to people who couldn’t usually take part, as they create the Land to Come, a film looking at how GGR could impact the land and its communities.
A residential film school hosted in woodland, local to biochar and Enhanced Rock Weathering projects in Wales, Ffilm School will take an anti-extractivist approach – working against the assumptions that have led to climate change and biodiversity loss, the assumption that you can take without reciprocal obligations.
The documentary-making experiment will itself be filmed by other filmmakers, with the resulting films shared and screened for local communities, and more widely.
Miranda Whall – Peatland Performance Piece
When Peat Speaks aims ‘to give peat a voice.’ Miranda Whall will use datasets from instrumentation installed across 32 plots on degraded peatland to create drawings, sculptures, film and solo and collaborative performances, including experimental improv music and Butoh dance.
The performance pieces will be staged on the peat bog deep within the Cambrian Mountains, and will feature an ensemble of international experimental musicians and a Butoh dancer, immersing a live audience in the landscape.
The works hopes to engage audiences with the cultural and ecological significance of peatland, foster a deeper understanding of Green House Gas Removal and offer a post-human perspective and connection to the Cambrian Mountains.
Selina Wagner – Animated Folktale Working with schools
The Day we Cleaned the Sky: imagine looking back from the future 500 years from now, celebrating the day we successfully removed greenhouse gases from our atmosphere.
Selina Wagner will create an animated folktale that instead of telling a story from the past, starts a dialogue about something that happens in the future – celebrating the day the world achieved a net-zero emissions economy via GGR. Inspired by creation myths from around the world, the folktale will be developed with school children in Stirlingshire, where she’ll uncover what GGR means to young people and families.
Yambe Tam – A Virtual reality purification ritual
The Rite of the Ten Winds, is an interactive VR experience, featuring a series of purification rituals with each ritual occurring at sunset over the course of a month in cities relevant to GGR, weaving together natural rhythms with the digital world.
Yambe Tam’s VR landscapes and rituals will examine the roles of key players in GGR on microscopic to planetary scales, such as algae, sphagnum moss, humans and machines. Visitors will be able to explore artifacts from each ritual and documentation re GGR. It will be available online in perpetuity.
