Green manifesto
In this guide:
Calls to action
A set of propositions for good practice
What can you do?
Practical steps you can take to make your art practice more environmentally responsible
Introduction
We are in a climate emergency, we must act now. Created by artists, for artists, the Green Manifesto will motivate and empower you to take active steps towards an environmentally responsible practice. Individually and collectively, we can make real change.
What does environmental responsibility include?
• energy use
• pollution
• materials and waste
• climate change
• the natural environment
• biodiversity and conservation
• climate justice
• land management and agriculture
• travel
• digital
• the wider economic and political systems we work within
Calls to action
Real change happens when we work together: When we each make a small change, together we make a big difference.
Do what you can: Focus on the change that’s achievable for you. It may be different for others.
Don’t feel guilty: Individually we can’t do everything. Let’s be empathetic to ourselves and others. Encouragement is better than pressure or shame.
What’s good for the planet is good for artists: Let’s understand the effects our actions have on the environment and adapt our ways of working and living.
Use your voice: Environmental concerns don’t have to be the subject of your creative work for you to have a critical voice and engage in open dialogue. Be confident in your actions and committed to your future.
Respect diversity: We need to share and value different forms of knowledge, especially those that are rooted in lived experience to support communities most affected by the climate crisis.
Make it accessible: Art does not have borders, the more it is universally accessible, the more we can understand our impact on each other and the planet.
Challenge what you know: Let’s scrutinise what we’ve been taught and consider its environmental implications.
Empower each other: We are a rich knowledge base. Let’s share what we know with others and learn from their experiences.
Think globally, act locally: Think about where equipment and materials come from and where they go afterwards. Let’s work with our communities to share resources.
Speak up, ask questions: Together we can demand more from organisations. All artists should have the right to work in an environmentally sustainable way.
Sustainable solutions: Let’s work in harmony with the natural world and move away from unsustainable practices. Use alternatives to mass produced, fuel-consuming, polluting products, transport and materials.
Work towards:
Sharing
Reducing
Reusing
Repairing
Recycling
What can you do?
Making:
• Buy second-hand equipment and materials.
• Make less. Challenge the culture of over-production.
• Share equipment and materials with other artists or studio residents.
• Buy reclaimed wood from local timber yards.
Exhibiting:
• Avoid single-use fixings such as tape, Velcro, Command strips.
Shipping:
• Reduce how much packaging you use.
• Reuse packaging.
Travel:
• Walk, cycle or use public transport.
Admin:
• Print using eco-friendly ink.
• Print using sustainably-sourced recycled or paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
Digital:
• Clear out-of-date documents, images and files out of cloud storage and social media accounts.
Making:
• Research how best to dispose of your waste materials without polluting.
• Set up a recycling area in your studio complex.
• Make your own glazes.
• Make and use environmentally friendly photographic chemistry.
• Replace toxic mediums and solvents with natural oils and solvent replacers.
Exhibiting:
• Ensure that your instructions for gallery staff conserve electricity, e.g. fully turning off digital equipment overnight.
Shipping:
• Only use biodegradable packaging.
• Collaborate with other artists to ship or transport work together.
Travel:
• Lift share to events.
• Look for carbon neutral accommodation.
Admin:
• Write an Environmental Policy for you and your practice.
Digital:
• Check images used on your website are not larger files than necessary.
Making:
• Switch to green energy at home and at the studio or talk to your studio provider about switching to green energy.
• Find out where all the materials you use came from. How were they extracted and created? What effect does using them have on the environment?
Exhibiting:
• Ask the gallery to support your environmental values and commitments.
• Only exhibit with venues that are environmentally responsible and can ensure that work can be produced, installed and exhibited sustainably.
• Seek subsidies for responsible travel to exhibitions.
Shipping:
• Speak with couriers to devise the most sustainable transport methods for your work or work with carbon neutral couriers.
Travel:
• Travel on ground and sea rather than air where possible. Make longer journeys by train or bus rather than plane. • Use electric or hybrid vehicles.
Admin:
• Use your platform as an artist to discuss sustainability and environmental responsibility.
Digital:
• Re-design website using low-energy principles.
Researched and written by:
a-n Artists Council members: Tom Pope, Alys Scott-Hawkins and Melanie Wheeler, with input from the wider a-n Artists Council and a-n team.
Residents of Arches studios, Blacklands studios, Common Mormon studios, Primary studios and Backlit studios.
Farah Ahmed
Ellie Harrison
Dr Susan Jones
Yva Jung
Katie Keddie
Ashokkumar Mistry
