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The eco-artists using creativity to fuel their activism
It was nearing midsummer when Megan Trump put on a white gown, braided flowers in her hair and walked down the aisle surrounded by tearful friends, family and well-wishers.
In a beautiful bower at Eastwood Farm Nature Reserve and just a few steps from the banks of the Avon, she pledged her hand in marriage to the river.
Designed to draw attention to sewage dumping, the event was part of a wider campaign to make Bristol’s waters clean and safe for both swimming and wildlife – but it became so much more than that for Meg and onlookers.
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“We wanted to bring people together in celebration, out of love and respect,” says Meg, a poet and playworker. “A wedding is a way to unionise that goes back a long way in human history.
“The speeches and ‘I Do’s’ at the end of the ceremony became shared promises to care for the river and everything it influences. I genuinely feel different now I’ve made those promises, and looking up to see the tear-stained faces – including my boss and oldest friends – made me feel I’m not alone in that. We’ve all made some life-long commitments now.”
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The emotions felt on that day are testament to the power of creativity to connect us to the natural environment. It’s just one of many reasons why activists are turning to art to engage people in environmental causes.
“Creative arts inspire action because they move people,” Meg continues. “When people feel moved, they’re compelled to tell others. This is how change happens healthily, with benefit to all because it comes from a place of joy.”
It was that positivity that the Save Our Avon campaigners wanted to tap into. Environmental causes are often tied to feelings of grief and despair. Stories of ecological collapse plague the news daily, with a real sense of time running out. Creative activities provide a welcome, some say necessary, opportunity to reset, play and celebrate.
Eco-anxiety is a real and increasing phenomenon. Dedicated environmental activists can suffer exhaustion and burnout. Climate change campaigners have been battling for years, sometimes decades, to make themselves heard, using traditional forms of protest like petitions, marches and demonstrations.
Nature campaigners feel strongly about their charge. They’re emotionally invested to the point of getting willingly and repeatedly arrested; remaining childless; sitting in the middle of motorways, or standing naked in the House of Commons. So it’s no surprise that the perception of losing the fight, and the anxiety around the consequences of that, can have significant impacts.
Meg says involvement in protests left her frustrated: “Having participated in many big actions for environmental campaigns, we really wanted Save Our Avon to be something that was enjoyable, that wouldn’t upset or annoy anyone.
“Although I think all types of action are important if we want to make big, fundamental change happen as quickly as it needs to, I know too many exhausted and sceptical people that simply don’t have the time and energy to comprehend climate collapse.
“It’s disheartening to take part in action after action that is misunderstood or misrepresented in the media. But everyone loves a wedding!”
Not only that, says Meg, but creativity can mitigate the stress for campaigners:
“Art helps us manage the overwhelm. It demonstrates this natural balance of inputs and outputs like the Earth does. And we are nature after all, defending itself.”
Sharing songs about trees is a way for communities to gather and learn about their local environment – photo: Hedgesong Collective
Emily Unsworth White, a visual artist instrumental in organising the wedding, joined Meg on a three-day pilgrimage by boat, tandem and foot, from the swimming spot at Conham River Park to the river’s source at Didmarton. Following the journey, she created woven textile artworks from grasses, herbs and flowers foraged along the way.
Emily suggests creative activities provide a space to talk about the climate emergency in a gentle way:
“It’s common to have symptoms of burnout, despair and grief. From there it’s very difficult to be proactive. It’s easy to just give up because it feels hopeless.
“But when we get together to be creative it restores us and shows how we can work together, how we can take care of each other and ourselves.”
Emily works in many ways to creatively connect people with nature. With Hedgesong Collective she collaborates with musician Maz McNamara, bringing communities together to learn about their local environment through song.
Maz, too, appreciates the power of creativity to crank open the imagination. “The great thing about art is it has this alchemical ability to shift our view of things, to alter perspectives – to introduce new conversations or provoke questions,” she explains.
Tim Ryan’s podcast explores the relationship between fishermen on the Feeder Canal and “that omnipresent, eternal alchemist – the natural world” – photo: Tim Ryan
It’s this provocative element that artist Tim Ryan connected with in particular on a recent project exploring fishing on the Feeder Canal.
Tim is happy to admit that he went into the project with little knowledge of the area and a host of preconceptions: “I had quite defined thoughts on the space and my angle – the heavy traffic, flytipping, pollution; the industrial estates that sandwich the canal on both sides.”
It was through his artistic practice – collecting field recordings, stitching together atmospheric sounds and ideas – that he developed an understanding of the place’s unique nature.
“I got completely obsessed with the place,” reflects Tim; “Skulking around for months, pestering fishermen, standing under railway bridges at 11pm in the rain with my field recorder, trying to capture that perfect eerie night train rattle.
“I was hellbent on highlighting the absurdity of fishing in this distorted environment. But by the end of it my perception had completely changed.
“I discovered that it’s a shapeshifting, magical space that forces you to bin your preconceptions.”
With The Thrill of Zilch, artist Tim Ryan has created a fictional archive of creatures fished from the city’s marginal spaces – photo: Tim Ryan
Creativity helps practitioners delve deeply into subjects, to unpick and express complicated ideas. When considering nature, art can be a way to convey information that seems impalpable or indefinable – in Tim’s case, his newfound understanding of the canal: “The Feeder is such a contradiction, a conflict of interests. Volatile and peaceful, mesmeric and terrifying.”
Maz takes this one step further, immersing herself in the environment to produce work that resonates with nature.
“I like going to beaches, into forests and caves and using the materials I find to make sound and rhythm, singing in ways that play with the acoustics of the space,” she says. “I see it as co-creation with the landscape.”
Maz hopes this work can help her listeners connect deeply with nature:
“Creating space for the ‘more-than-human’ world in our art affirms that our bodies and minds are just as much a part of nature as – and no more important than – clay, stream, wood, stone, space.”
It’s as complex and as simple as that. Creativity holds an intangible ‘something’ that gives us a deeper understanding which, if we look closely enough – or perhaps sidelong, with squinted eyes – we can catch a glimpse of.
As Emily says, “It’s this light that people get in their eyes.” And the inspiration is infectious. “They’ll take that away with them, do something with it, pass it on in some form.”
Maz says that art is vital in crafting a sustainable future: “We need to hold and deepen our connection to joy and togetherness if we’re to have a chance of coming out the other side of the ecological crisis.”
Save Our Avon will be holding an autumn exhibition at the Sparks sustainable department store. Find out more on their Instagram @saveouravon
Share songs or invite the Hedgesong Collective to lead a community singing workshop near you @hedgesongcollective
Main photo: Save Our Avon
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