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Madeleine Bunting: art and climate

Date: 29 March 2010

Can art carry the weight of expectations that are being placed upon it? Has art discovered a new sense of purpose in tackling climate? In this major new essay commissioned by the RSA Arts & Ecology Centre, writer and commentator Madeleine Bunting visits three major exhibitions to examine what changes when art takes on environment. More...

The highlights of 2009

Date: 18 January 2010

Film, drama, visual arts, writing, activism. When it came to art that encounters themes around environmentalism, 2009 was a peak year for artists from all disciplines. We've picked our highlights. What are yours? More...

William Cobbing | Bamiyan Mirror Series

Date: 05 November 2009

In 2001 the Taliban destroyed the centuries-old Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan. When artist William Cobbing went there to explore how the iconography of conflict can be an absence of imagery, he found himself making a piece of work rooted in the ideas of Arte Povera and the Land Art movement. More...

Josie Appleton | Towards human species consciousness

Date: 30 September 2009

'Man is a producer and not just a consumer of nature; part of his productive nature is to make nature," writes Josie Appleton. Environmentalism pits man against nature. Is it time to abandon its restrictive worldview in favour of accepting humanity's transformative role in creating the world around us? Artists have already imagined how we make new worlds; isn't it time for us to synthesize our "human species consciousness"? More...

Emma Ridgway | RETHINK

Date: 30 September 2009

In a new essay written to accompany the exhibition RETHINK, Emma Ridgway, Curator at the RSA Arts & Ecology Centre, argues that to create the ecological future we need, requires a profound shift in thinking – away from the negative scorning of industrialisation towards a positive conception of human capacity. . More...