Stories of Change: Exploring energy and community in the past, present and future
| An Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project ‘Exploring energy and community in the past, present and future’ aims to help to revive public and political conversations about energy by looking in a fresh way at its past, present and future. Artists led by Tipping Point and Visiting arts are working with communities and university researchers.
Story 1: Policy Story: Demanding Times gathers a novel mix of communities of interest around energy policy, and generates new accounts of energy policy and politics past, present and future. Story 2: Industry Story: Future Works is rooted in the English midlands, and seeks to unearth fresh accounts of the long relationship between energy, industrial making and landscape, and explores where it might go next. Story 3: Everyday Story: Life Cycles engages with the role that energy resources have played in shaping communities and everyday life in south Wales. |
Art and Energy inspires a drawing class in Crediton, Devon
by Naomi Wright
It is the beginning of term and we stand about discussing our theme for our classes ahead. I suggest art and energy, it interests me for all sorts of reasons. I say I am helping with similar themed workshops with some college students outdoors as part of Regensw’s art and energy programme. I wonder whether it will interest the class. We think about the wide range of meanings for energy. Energy is everything, I say, remembering a recent workshop. In a physical sense, binding the molecules of our being, energy fixed from the sun, in the movement of a river, the heat from a fire, in our food, in the every-day. We have our own energy, in the spirit of the land, in leylines, in happiness, in despair.
So the term at Crediton arts centre has taken this as a theme…. A couple of us are working with an old luccombe oak that has had to be cut down in the local park. We think of the power within, the height and weight of it, the history in it, the energy held beneath in the ground. The dying energy, used by fungus, the last of the leaves to be photosynthisising.
The tree………..
Eileen’s tree
Others in the class discuss their drawings through the eye of an energy lens. Lines are energetic, directioned, growing. The still life is far from still as vegetation takes on a new meaning, pots spin, and all the senses are enlivened.
Rebecca’s pots
We’re all curious in how this will progress… Pat especially, as she has ideas for some new installations.
Naomi Wright is an artist who collaboratively researches the benefits of being outdoors in the elements. In sunshine, wind, or rain she maps and constructs places, things and conversations that make the most of our ecological interplay.
Powerchord and Drawing Energy, Suslab at the RCA
SusLab: a unique international platform to develop successful sustainable innovations for homes.
Suslab are interested in researching peoples perceptions of energy and have recently completed a research project with the RCA on drawing energy. An EU funded international project combines quantitative research with ethnographic design methodology.
Inescapable limits, Thomas Ball, London
Documenting the increased use of unconventional ‘dirty’ energy sources as well as excessive energy consumption, Thomas Ball’s photographs are a stark and honest portrayal of our short term use if the environment.
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Paintsmiths visit Heron Road by Felix ‘FLX’ Braun and Jack ‘Dones’
Heron Road, Bristol 2015
| This mural was created for Bristol City Council and the Warm Up Bristol Campaign show home over at 56 Heron Road, Easton, BS5. |
| The mural itself is a stunning piece of work showing off the house itself and lots of examples of the old types of energy and the new sustainable energies that are now available |
Playing For Time
Making Art as if the world matters, Lucy Neal
| Published in 2015, this groundbreaking handbook is a resource for artists, community activists and anyone wishing to reach beyond the facts and figures of science and technology to harness their creativity to make change in the world. This timely book explores the pivotal role artists play in re-thinking the future; re-inventing and re-imagining our world at a time of systemic change and uncertainty. Lucy Neal talks here. |
Nautilus Turbine by Hannah Imlach
Nautilus Turbine (tulip wood, birch plywood, acrylic tube and cork, 2016) is a sculptural response to the community-run energy infrastructure of the Isle of Eigg, Scotland. The piece focuses on the island’s hydroelectric scheme which provides the majority of power, and the social, environmental and economic factors that have made the islanders’ self-sufficiency possible.
Nautilus Turbine takes the form of a personal turbine, activated by a swimmer. Its multiple kinetic elements are inspired by the logarithmic patterns of shell spirals and industrial turbines. At its essence, the piece explores the exertion and responsibility taken on by the people of Eigg in generating their own power and the autonomy, freedom and environmental understanding this has afforded them.
The Isle of Eigg community are celebrated for their success in campaigning and fundraising to purchase the land on which they live, previously held (like much of Scotland) by private landowners. This community ownership has allowed the Islanders to develop many aspects of their infrastructure, most notably their pioneering renewable energy scheme. By capitalizing on their landscapes resources and making the island a site for piloting innovative technologies, the community were able to install a combination of photovoltaic panels, wind turbines and hydroelectric turbines, replacing the noisy and polluting generators formally used. Most importantly to the success of their model, the islanders are all aware of their allotted energy allowance and individuals have been trained to monitor, maintain and repair the technology.
Nautilus Turbine takes the form of a personal turbine, activated by a swimmer. Its multiple kinetic elements are inspired by the logarithmic patterns of shell spirals and industrial turbines. At its essence, the piece explores the exertion and responsibility taken on by the people of Eigg in generating their own power and the autonomy, freedom and environmental understanding this has afforded them.
The piece was created during a three-phase residency: with The Bothy Project at Sweeney’s Bothy on the Isle of Eigg, to collect initial research, at Glasgow Sculpture Studios, to develop and create the sculpture, and then returning Eigg to document the work at Laig weir, which supplies the island’s largest hyrdoelectric generator. The project was greatly aided by advice and logistical help from Eddie Scott, Lucy Conway and Neil Robertson from the Isle of Eigg and the photographic documentation was created with the assistance of Lila Matsumoto, Thomas Butler and Alice Mary Cooper, who performed with the sculpture at the Laig weir site.
The project was supported by the Royal Scottish Academy through their 2015 Residencies for Scotland award.
