Ecologies in Practice
Participatory arts methods for engaging young people in climate research
Video above shows students drawing and writing at one of the workshops
Ecologies in Practice: Participatory arts methods for engaging young people in climate research, is a practice research project developed by the Centre for Arts and Learning and Climate Museum UK. The research team set out to find out about how a range of arts methods could enable young people to express their voices and feelings about what can be called ‘the Earth Crisis’. The project also aimed to share empowering information about the causal factors of climate change, and about the interdependency of humans and other-than-humans - such as the animal and plant species on Earth.
As part of this project the research team planned and delivered a sequence of workshops to investigate how best to support the empowerment of young people via different practice research methods. In each workshop, participants experienced three different methods on one day, finding connections between their experiences of voicing, drawing, writing, moving, listening and making.
Video shows Kevin playing a movement game with student participants
Creative Methods
On this website you will find some of the resources the Ecologies in Practice research team have created to help young people engage with ecological learning through arts practices.
These resources for arts approaches to the issues raised by the Earth Crisis focus on three methods:
Dialogic objects created in response to the collections of Climate Museum UK.
Sound and movement prompts.
Focused, expressive drawing and writing around the issues involved for emotive and empathic connections.
Workshop Feedback
“ . . . all the lessons we have had and everything about climate change it’s all been focused on numbers and that doesn’t resonate with me. So something more creative, it gets the cogs turning.”
“A lot of people have that preconception around things with talks and discussions about the environment that is very very angry, very full on, very like we are all going to die. Which you know, is true but it’s nice that this has been a really nice way of speaking about it without everything being like this is the end. It’s like this doesn’t have to be the end if we do something about it kind of thing.”
“So I think there were no restrictions on any of today’s activities, I really enjoyed them all. And I like the fact that all of the staff kept saying that we were free to do what we kind of felt was right, you know. So we could basically express our ideas however we wanted to and there were no restrictions at all.”
“ . . . the fact that there were three workshops was great because I think that people have been able to maybe use what they feel is their best way of communicating in one or the other of the workshops. And I think they are slightly different in their approach in that way it’s nice.”
“ . . . it’s just really nice to do something about the climate that doesn’t feature massive anxiety.”
This website has been developed to help share the research team's learning from these workshops, and to show the arts practice made and voices expressed by the young participants, as well as to offer resources for arts practitioners in schools, universities and the wider community. You can find out more information about our research here.
The research team would like to express their sincere thanks and respect to the students and teachers of the five schools who took part in two of the workshops; as well as the undergraduate students at Goldsmiths who participated in a third workshop created for them.
This Ecologies in Practice project was made possible by funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and support from Goldsmiths University of London.
