Our Active Environmentalism programme builds our knowledge and ways of seeing and considering our relationship with our environment.
Our own decisions and reasonings are personal but by being informed there is no doubt we are in a better position to make the right choices. Collectively they can help add up to positive change.
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5 October – 13 January 2025
British sculptor and climate change advocate, Tessa Campbell Fraser aims to unravel the interspecies communications between man and animal that are currently at the forefront of scientific research. Three monumental (5.2m, 4.6m and 3m respectively) sculptures of sperm whales will hang from the roof of the tithe barn.
Sunday 6 October
With the help of a number of environmental experts we aimed to shed light on the problems that confront us as individuals and what we can do collectively to mitigate the damage. We also hear dabout technological advances being made to resolve the many issues we face and how to facilitate further changes in our way of thinking about our relationship with the environment.
6 May – 9 July 2023
The Hidden was a sound and film installation by Australian filmmaker and artist Tim Georgeson and composer, performer and proud Kalkadunga man, William Barton. It offers a personal account of the Bundanon land and waterscapes in New South Wales, Australia.
26 April – 26 May 2023
Shaun Fraser’s work frequently comments upon notions of identity, links to landscape and connections with place. His practice questions how the landscapes, spaces and places which we inhabit form us and can be translated through personal engagement, privileging one’s own memory as a principal source.
7 May – 3 July 2022
The artists selected engage and expand our understanding of this extraordinary ecosystem and bellwether to change. Their work sets out not just to alert and inform, but to key into our empathy with the underwater environment, to sow the seeds of our imagination and drum up our own sense of agency for change.
16 July – 5 September 2021
What Listening Knows was a 3-channel audio and video installation by Australian artists Sonia Leber & David Chesworth. Three performers acted as ‘field recordists’ in the landscape.
16 July – 12 September 2021
Unkempt was an exhibition recognising the advent of a changing aesthetic in landscape – one that is by its nature wild, messy and more empathetic to the environment.
7 May – 5 June 2021
Common is the ground we stand on, and perhaps what is now taking place is a shift in our own aesthetics, based on that common knowledge that is helping us to see and appreciate our landscape through subtly different filters.
January 2021
Online conversation with Olly Steeds on his mission to accelerate the sequencing of the ocean genome.
Oliver is Chief Executive and Mission Director of Nekton – a not-for-profit, charitable research foundation established to accelerate the scientific exploration and protection of the ocean.
January 2021
Ben Goldsmith, who owns a 300-acre farm, near Bruton in Somerset, plans to transform it into a wild habitat within the next four years.
Ben is chair of the Conservative Environmental Network and is on the Board of DEFRA.
January 2021
Online conversation with writer and conservationist Isabella Tree who spoke with the travel writer and novelist Philip Marsden about her pioneering rewilding project in West Sussex.
Isabella is an award-winning author and travel writer. She had published five non-fiction books and writes for publications such as National Geographic, Granta, The Sunday Times and The Observer.
February 2021
Fine Art photographer Hugo Rittson Thomas joined us for an online talk with ecologist and botanist Professor Sir Ghillean Prance.
In partnership with conservation charity Plantlife, Hugo was inspired by the achievements of the Coronation Meadows established by HRH The Prince of Wales in 2013
February 2021
Online talk with Brigit Strawbridge Howard wildlife gardener, naturalist, and advocate of bees.
Earth is home to more than 20,000 different species of bee. Around 280 of these can be found in Britain & Ireland.
February 2021
The NFU’s Nick von Westenholz joined us to discuss Environmental Land Management.
In England 69% of our landscape is farmed, under the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme, farmers will be paid for work that enhances the environment, such as tree or hedge planting, river management to mitigate flooding, or creating or restoring habitats for wildlife.
February 2021
Online discussion with Sir Tim Smit where we debated radical thinking at the intersection of science, necessity and the environment.
Sir Tim Smit KBE is a leading environmentalist and businessman particularly recognised for his work on the Lost Gardens of Heligan and founding the Eden Project International.
March 2021
Chief Executive of the RSPB, Beccy Speight discussed what our migrating & permanent residents tell us about wider changes to the environment.
Since it’s inception in 1889 the threats to birdlife and their habitats have continued to grow but the RSPB have ambitious and wide-reaching conservation plans to change the fate of nature.
April 2021
Husband and wife team David and Annie joined us to discuss the microbial roots of life and health.
Good health—for people and plants—depends on microbiomes, the communities of Earth’s smallest and least-loved creatures.
April 2021
Online conversation with landscape architect Kim Wilkie who has worked on the grounds of the Natural History Museum & the V&A.
As a landscape architect Kim tries to understand the memories and associations embedded in a place and the natural flows of people, land, water and climate.
May 2021
For the past 20 years Charlie Paton has been developing his Seawater Greenhouse concept.
This harnesses solar energy, photosynthesis, evapo-transpiration and the condensation potential of cool seawater to create a virtuous cycle that produces fresh food and potable water in locations where shortages are a significant problem.
October 2021
With Hugo Tagholm, who leads the national marine conservation and campaigning charity Surfers Against Sewage (SAS).
SAS takes action from the beach front to the front benches of Parliament, where it unites a voice for the ocean through its Ocean Conservation All Party Parliamentary Group. It mobilises over 100,000 community beach and river clean volunteers annually.
November 2021
Coinciding with Cop 26 we discussed how to make land pay in an online talk with wildlife conservationist Julian Matthews.
Matthews is the founder of Real Wild Estates, the UK’s first ecosystem and species restoration business.
December 2021
NFU President Minette Batters in discussion with Johnny Messum on why farming is facing potential ruin through ill advised trade deals.
What are farmers doing for the environment and net zero and what more they could do given the chance. Minette has agreed a target for the NFU of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.
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