RSA Arts + Ecology Centre

Location: London, England
Years: 2005 to present
Funding: Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA)
Researchers: individual artists, architects, and partnering agencies in the UK

The RSA Centre was set up by the RSA in 2005 to bring together artists and the public in a dialogue about the causes and human impact on climate change. Through its leadership and commitment to action, the RSA Centre is commissioning debate, interdisciplinary discourse, research and events to catalyze and publicize the need to engage in the battle against global warming.

The Centre’s Head is Michaela Crimmin who states. “Artists have always had a powerful relationship with the natural environment. Equally, artists continually question and re-examine society’s notion of progress. We need their perspective on the enormous challenge ahead — on the relationship between environmental issues, and not least climate change, and people”.

The RSA’s use of robust communications technologies has helped to raise the awareness of the Centre’s work and is a showcase for an equally powerful collection of current and planned events and exhibitions that span the range of artistic disciplines and multi-media representation.

Of particular interest is The Ghost Forest Project by artist Angela Palmer, who earlier this month traveled to Ghana, and with the help from local laborers and the cooperation of the Ghana Forestry Commission was able to remove the giant tree stumps from their in-situ habitat to be shipped to London for the exhibition next month. Imagine the overwhelming visual power of ten gigantic tree roots occupying Trafalgar Square. Her pungent message of the cost of deforestation, both spiritually and ecologically, could not be more palpable.

The RSA Arts and Ecology Centre recognizes that perhaps the best way to communicate their mission of saving the environment is through the harnessed and leveraged intellectual and creative core of artists around the world.

www.rsaartsandecology.org.uk/