CRITICAL FRIENDS
Scroll to explore our research networks, creative partnerships & collaborating organisations that work with our members.
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Scroll to explore our research networks, creative partnerships & collaborating organisations that work with our members.
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ARTS CATALYST, LONDON / SHEFFIELD
Arts Catalyst produces artist projects, research and public programmes at the intersections of art, health, ecology and economics. Find out about our online programme and future updates by subscribing to our e-newsletter.
CENTER FOR CREATIVE ECOLOGIES, SANTA CRUZ
The Center for Creative Ecologies provides a place to consider the intersection of culture and environment. The aim is to develop useful interdisciplinary research tools to examine how cultural practitioners—filmmakers, new media strategists, photojournalists, architects, writers, activists, and interdisciplinary theorists—critically address and creatively negotiate environmental concerns in the local, regional, and global field. These concerns include anthropogenic climate change and global warming, and relate to factors such as habitat destruction, drought, species extinction, and environmental degradation. Drawing on such wide-ranging fields as visual culture and art history, political ecology and economics, Earth jurisprudence and new materialism philosophy, Indigenous cosmopolitics and climate justice activism, the Center energizes the formation of the emerging environmental arts and humanities.
CONTEMPORARY ART ARCHIPELAGO, FINLAND
CCA is a curatorial collective supporting site-sensitive artistic work at the intersection of ecological, feminist and decolonial enquiries. CAA has been initiating and leading long-term multidisciplinary projects in the Turku Archipelago, off the south-west coast of Finland in the Baltic Sea since 2009 in collaboration with diverse scientific research organisations and other actors in the region. The research projects by CAA are all committed to bringing local practitioners and experts into dialogue with international colleagues and peers, drawn together to address environmental and societal urgencies both in their local specificities and planetary resonances.
CREEKSIDE DISCOVERY CENTRE, DEPFORD Creekside Discovery Centre is committed to maintaining Deptford Creek for people and wildlife and promoting ways we can all be conservation heroes. We run a series of low tide walks, talks and hands on learning activities aimed at schools, the local community, Londoners and building professionals involved in regeneration developments.
DARK ECOLOGY / SONIC ACTS, AMSTERDAM
Dark Ecology was a three-year art, research and commissioning project, initiated by Sonic Acts and Kirkenes-based curator Hilde Methi, and in collaboration with Norwegian and Russian partners. Dark Ecology unfolded through research, the creation of new artworks, and a public programme that was presented in the zone on both sides of the border in 2014, 2015 and 2016. The programme included lectures, presentations of newly commissioned artworks, guided walks, a discursive programme, concert evenings, and workshops. www.darkecology.net
FORENSIC ARCHITECTURE / CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY NATURE
Forensic Architecture’s Centre for Contemporary Nature presents two projects concerned with direct attacks on plants and vegetation, in the context of political conflict. One is a conflict at the threshold of the desert, the other at the threshold of the rainforest. Along the border fences of Gaza, Research Fellow Shourideh C. Molavi explores the effects of Israel’s use of herbicide on Palestinian farms, while in the forest frontiers of Colombia,Research Fellow Hannah Meszaros Martin investigates the military deployment of herbicide against coca plantations, and the resulting impact on the livelihood of local farmers. Together, these two cases, thousands of miles apart, demonstrate the entanglement of human and environmental violence
HORNIMAN MUSEUM & GARDENS, SOUTH-EAST LONDON
Located in Forest Hill the museum is named after Frederick Horniman, who inherited and ran his father’s business, Horniman’s Tea, and was elected as an MP for the Liberal Party in 1895. The Horniman family did not own tea plantations, but were merchants, buying mostly Chinese tea on the London market at auction. They made huge profits, using their reputation to promote their brand of pure, unadulterated tea. This drew on anti-Chinese sentiment in Britain to build mistrust in other sources of Chinese tea. The Victorian and colonial context in which Frederick Horniman and his staff collected and documented objects also needs critical reinterpretation today, working with international partners and community members to ensure their cultural heritage is displayed and cared for respectfully and ethically.
LONDON MINING NETWORK, UK
Supporting communities harmed by London-based mining companies. We act in solidarity with groups badly affected by London-linked mining companies. Communities include La Guajira in Colombia, opposing Cerrejon coal mine – the biggest coal mine in the world – jointly owned by three London-linked mining companies: AngloAmerican, Glencore, and BHP. Groups working for justice for Marikana community in South Africa – still reeling from the massacre of 34 striking mine workers in 2012, where Lonmin platinum mining company has still not provided sufficient reparations to those affected. We also work with groups challenging gold and uranium mining in Spain, and West Papuan and Indonesian groups opposing the Grasberg mine in West Papua, part owned by London-listed Rio Tinto.
MAAT CLIMITE COLLECTIVE, LISBON
Bringing urgent focus to climate emergency, maat Climate Collective energises critical analyses and creative proposals in moving beyond catastrophism and toward the emergence of environmentally sustainable and socially just futures. Interdisciplinary in breadth and international in scope, our programme assembles diverse cultural practitioners working at the intersection of experimental arts and political ecology in a year-long project of collective deliberation. The goal: to unveil horizons of thought and action vital for a liveable future, dedicated to unpacking the complexities – socio-economic, juridico-political, techno-environmental and cultural – of climate transformation.
NUCLEAR CULTURE
The NUCLEAR-CULTURE-RESEARCH-GROUP email list is for artists, curators, and academics in the nuclear arts, humanities and sciences, as well as nuclear professionals, to share their research and opportunities around nuclear culture.
PLATFORM ARTS ACTIVISM EDUCATION RESEARCH, LONDON
Platform is different. We combine art, activism, education and research in one organisation. This approach enables us to create unique projects driven by the need for social and ecological justice. Platform’s current campaigns focus on the social, economic and environmental impacts of the global oil industry. Our pioneering education courses, exhibitions, art events and book projects promote radical new ideas that inspire change. How we work is important to us. We operate through collective decision-making. Our team includes campaigners, artists and researchers who act together and with networks to achieve long-term, systemic goals. Everyone in Platform is committed to our core values of justice, solidarity, creativity and democracy. You can read our statement on values here.
SAKIYA, PALESTINE
Sakiya is a progressive academy for experimental knowledge production and sharing, grafting local agrarian traditions of self-sufficiency with contemporary art and ecological practices. This circular system of knowledge production and sharing integrates agriculture within the framework of an interdisciplinary residency program, where cultural actors, such as farmers and crafts/small industry initiatives, assume a prominent role alongside visiting and local artists and scholars. Sakiya’s core programs engage food production, exhibitions, symposia, publications, and education/training workshops, exploring the intersections between art, science, and agriculture in a sustainable and replicable model.
THE SEED BOX, SWEDEN
The Seed Box is an interdisciplinary and international Environmental Humanities research program funded by Mistra (The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research) and Formas (The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences, and Spatial Planning). The long-term goal of the program is to establish a research hub and humanities lab at Linköping University. Focused on research, education, and artistic practices that address pressing environmental challenges, this program will bring together practitioners from different fields and create an interface between academia and other parts of society.
SOUTH LONDON BOTANICAL INSTITUTE
Founded in 1910 in Tulse Hill, the South London Botanical Institute has a beautiful botanical garden and runs a wide range of courses, workshops, school visits and events for all ages. See short films about our activities on YouTube and find out more about us.