Artworks Sustainability Month

Image credit to Artworks Rotherham and Sheffield, June 2022, Dominika Rojeska

As part of the Climate Justice programme YVAN collaborated with Artworks of Sheffield and Rotherham to fund an event and share learning around sustainability initiatives happening in the sector. 

Artworks is a non-profit creative arts organisation, inspiring and helping adults with learning disabilities to achieve their potential and develop important life skills through creative workshops and placements. ArtWorks ran an ‘eARThworths’ sustainability month over April this year where Artworks artists got involved in workshops based around sustainable methods of creating. The Equity, Diversity and Wellbeing working group from YVAN suggested funding one event during their sustainability month. Artworks collaborated with Mike Stubbs, an artist, curator and creative director of Doncaster Creates and ArtBomb to create this event.

The event took place on May 24 in Rotherham where Mike Stubbs arrived in the town square with his Climate Emergency Services (CES) Mobile Lab. 

‘CES is a mobile public art sculpture in the form of a hot rod van, a ‘conflicted’ vehicle and artwork, aiming to evoke and challenge our love / hate relationship with motor vehicles in a period becoming characterised by our increasing fear of climate change. The conflicted quality of the artwork’s message is condensed into the contract between the exterior and interior of the vehicle.’ Mike Stubbs

The ‘hot rod van’ was used to host workshops with Artworks artists and members of the public. They engaged around 61 members of the public in conversation and activity, with many more taking a moment to look at the van and see what was going on.

‘Through the conversations initiated by these activities and the engagement with the van, which acted as an exhibition space and played bird songs to attract the attention of the passing public, we have come up with an artwork for ArtBomb festival. Our artists are continuing the conversations by creating animal masks which will be paraded through Doncaster city centre, accompanied by a sound piece, curated to raise awareness of endangered species. The subject of animals has proven to be of great importance for our artists and it helps to convey ideas around climate change and the impact which it is having on the planet.’ Artworks team

We asked Dominika Rojeska from Artworks to give some feedback on how Sustainability Month went:

What did you expect from the day/month?

We hoped to raise awareness of sustainability in our studios and lead to long term changes which will reduce our carbon footprint. We expected our artists to experience something new during the workshop with Mike which would inspire fresh ideas for their independent practices. 

What went well?

All of the activities in our studios were taken really well by our artists, having to put more consideration into how we were choosing our materials meant that we were working with lots of new materials, leading to experiments with completely new processes which meant that the sessions were new and interesting for our artists. The success of this shows in the number of new projects which have been inspired by Sustainability Month. 

The workshop with Mike was enjoyable for our artists and it has led to the development of a piece for ArtBomb festival which will be great exposure for the work of our artists and continue the legacy of the project. 

What did you learn?

Through work with sustainable materials, it is not only the artists who have benefited from new ways of working, but we have become more aware as an organisation of how we can make better material choices when supporting our artists to create work. We have also learnt some initial insight into the subjects which contextualise conversations about climate change into ideas easily understandable by our artists, particularly conversations about the impact on animals, although this will require further work. 

What could be improved?

We were open to seeing how a fluid plan for the workshop with Mike would work with our artists, and how ideas for activities would be initiated by the van, the conversations and the context in which we were working. However, we have learnt that our artists benefit from a bit more structure and we will have a clearer plan of activities in the future, although it was worth giving this approach a try, as we have not worked in that way before. 

Artworks staff discussed ideas about climate justice with artists and produced an eARThworths sustainability month report to share some of their observations and learning with us:

During the month workshops included paper making, natural dying, flower pounding, weaving, candle making and many more. Alongside arts workshops we shifted our focus to our outdoor spaces, going on foraging walks to identify some of the plants growing around us and consider their benefits, bee keeping with learning around how honey is made and the importance of bees to our ecosystem as well as how to make use of the wax for candle making, growing plants to attract insects and building bug hotels.

Other long term projects have also arisen from Sustainability Month. This includes a sustainable catwalk, aiming to raise concerns over the ever expanding fast fashion industry and its impact on both the environment and underpaid workers. This will expand on some of the processes we looked at throughout the month, using waste materials such as plastic bags to make fabrics as well as creating large sculptural pieces out of cardboard. We are also collaborating with Freeman college to share some of the processes learnt throughout sustainability month which will then lead to a collaborative artwork which will be displayed in the Sheffield train station. Finally, we are developing an exhibition which will take place in Halifax next year, displaying our artists' work and running a series of workshops around climate justice. Things to work towards are more long term goals, rethinking the way we act outside of our space, the ways in which we travel to work, the energy consumption from working in an arts studio, and the wider impact we can have.

Questions were also addressed to the artists.

What processes have you learnt/enjoyed over sustainability month?

Andy enjoyed gardening and watching the sunflowers grow. Michael liked cardboard weaving and helping decorate the recycling point. Tim liked weeding and digging.

What else would you like to do around sustainability?

Tim, Andy and Mark would like to do some more gardening. Michael would like to do a group exhibition and some more posters and work with other people in Sheffield.

Overall the collaboration enabled networking opportunities between Artworks, Doncaster Creates and YVAN to build on relationships already established through ‘Symbiosis’ and ‘Rewilding the system’, ecology residencies led by Mike Stubbs and Doncaster Creates. 

We hope to do more on Climate Justice in the coming months through the ‘Symbiosis’ programme and to contribute to sustainability research in the sector.

All images credit to Artworks Rotherham and Sheffield, June 2022, Dominika Rojeska