Episode 29: Ackroyd & Harvey, Tuesday, November 16th, 2021
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Ackroyd & Harvey, eco-protectors, inventors and consciousness builders
Ackroyd & Harvey create works that intersect art, activism, architecture, biology, ecology and history. Referencing memory and time, nature and culture, urban political ecologies and degradation of the living planet, their time-based practice reveals an intrinsic bias towards process and event. They have extensive experience of working with scientists, and activating a greater public discourse on the ethics of aesthetics, activism within art-making and cultural adaptation to the climate and ecological emergency. They aim to place the climate and ecological emergency at the centre of the artistic landscape and in 2019, co-founded Culture Declares Emergency to tell truth, seek justice and take action.
Beuys’ Acorns, a work they initiated in 2007 is currently in exhibition at Tate Modern, 100 trees grown from acorns collected from “7000 Oaks” marking the centenary of Joseph Beuys’ birth and Tate’s declaration of the climate emergency. In June this year, they collaborated with author and Writers Rebel activist Ben Okri on a new large-scale work On the Shore, an installation and performance work in two acts from Tate’s Turbine Hall to Thames Bankside where a huge pelt of living grass photosynthesised with Okri’s words was floated on the river.