How to share in Oxfordshire

Here’s the scene: you’re planning an event or project, and you require some things to bring it to life. Your finger is on the ‘add to cart’ button but… WAIT! There’s another way. Arts production was possible before Amazon existed…

We can share! As a society, we need to stop hoarding resources, and a simple way to do that is to share what we already have. Reusable plastic cups that are gathering dust in an arts centre’s cupboard are more sustainable than new, nicely branded compostable cups – you get the idea. It’s tempting to order biodegradable, compostable or ‘eco-friendly’ materials and equipment, but at the end of the day, these items still required energy to produce and transport, and therefore almost every new product is responsible for new carbon emissions. When we understand the environmental cost of buying new, we can see the true value of sharing what we already have with others. Sharing is good for everyone, because it’s good for our planet.

If you’re reading this, the chances are that you already have an idea of why it’s important to avoid buying new wherever possible. Simply put, our planets resources are limited, we’re experiencing climate and ecological breakdown resulting from our consumption, and we don’t have long to change our ways before the damage is irreversible.

But there’s good news. When Sharebee surveyed 2000 people, they found that 60% of people want to share more! So lets do it.

Here are 6 ways that you can share in Oxfordshire…

Check SHARE Oxford Library of Things

Oxford is one of the pioneering places to have its own Library of Things! SHARE Oxford Library of Things aims to help make Oxford a sharing community for the future, tackling the climate emergency and cost of living crisis and forging community bonds with their library of things, repair cafés and online community.

They are a community action group, operating out of Makespace, a space that rapidly filled up and looks like a cave of wonders.

You can hire anything from a gazebo to an electric cargo bike, power tools, bunting or even a pedal powered smoothie maker, for an affordable price that goes towards ensuring that the library is financially sustainable.

You can take a look at their inventory here, and learn a bit more about their story below…

List an item on Sharebee

Sharebee is a new app building a sharing community that’s useful for people and good for the planet. They’ve got a growing presence in London, and it would be great to  establish a sharing network in Oxford, but we need your help to do it. 

Sharebee makes sharing easy – safely connecting people who want to lend with people who want to borrow. Protecting stuff that is lent, tracking whose got your stuff, saving time, space and money. And every time you lend or borrow you’ll be saving some C02. Lets stop defaulting to buying things we only use once or twice and start sharing instead.

Here’s a little film about how it works…

Sharebee’s founder Samuel Carter joined Ben Tuppen of SHARE Oxford Library of Things at an action group we hosted back in April. We discussed how we, as a network of artists and cultural organisations, might be able to share using these two resources. Hopefully sometime soon we can establish a protected ‘hive’ of GAON members who would like to share with each other. Get in touch if you’d be interested!

Come to a Swap Shop or host your own

The most eco-friendly materials are the ones that you already own! Lots of different community groups in Oxfordshire and further afield host clothing and plant swaps from time to time, and back in April we worked with Oxford Brookes University Fine Art student Ash Goller to hold one for art materials. 

The premise of ‘The Artisan Swap Shop’ is simple: gather up the materials you don’t use anymore (half used paints, fabric scraps, mediums that you didn’t get on with etc.), come along to a Swap Shop hosted by Ash, and swap for something that inspires you!

The first Swap Shop we held at Fusion Arts 95 Gloucester Green drew 30 visitors, who swapped canvases, oil pastels, sketchbooks, spray paints and more. Anything left over (and there was quite a bit) was donated to Orinoco, a scrapstore in Cowley and Banbury. It went so well that we exhibited a drop-in, un-manned Swap Shop stall as part of the recent Adapt Transform exhibition at Modern Art Oxford and the Oxford Brookes University’s Glass Tank gallery. Visitors could pop by at any time to adopt some unloved materials alongside other exhibits that explored urban design and creativity.

You could easily host a similar event yourself, by organising a time and place for people to bring items to, and letting lots of community groups know. It helps to have a reserve of a few items at the start for people to begin swapping with, or for those that discover the event by accident. Ash was able to source lots of unwanted materials from uni friends and the skip outside the art building. Let us know if you plan to host a similar event and we’ll do our best to spread the word.

Post on community facebook groups

Back in April, we needed a heat press for a workshop – which is pretty niche! We checked the Library of Things and Sharebee, but unfortunately neither had one of those yet. So, I turned to the community.

In Oxford we’re very lucky to have several active community Facebook groups, many catering to specific sectors like Oxfordshire Theatre Makers or Oxford Arts Events. Within an hour of posting my request to borrow a heat press on the Oxford Community Facebook page, a kind community member got in touch and we’d arranged for Pedal and Post to collect their spare heat press from Littlemore in no time at all.

I was so impressed with how quick and easy it had been to find. Maybe it was luck, maybe it was people power! When we needed another pair of heat proof gloves a few days before the event, I posted again. Once again, someone came to my aid, and we picked up some gloves from Flo’s – the Place in the Park. 

This was my experience – maybe yours will be different. I mentioned a reputable organisation in my post, and linked to the related event so that they could see that it was legitimate. People might be more hesitant to lend something to individuals that aren’t associated with a known group, but you don’t know until you try.

The SHARE Oxford Facebook group has 700 people and might be a great place to ask if you’re not sure where to start.

ShareOurCar

Speaking of community power, you can even share cars!

ShareOurCar wants to make it easier for communities to share cars. Sharing cars saves people money, makes nicer streets, and helps mitigate climate change. 
They created the UK’s first neighbourhood closed loop trusted group in East Oxford, partnering with Hiyacar (Airbnb for cars) who verify the drivers, provide the insurance, and manage the booking system.

Find out more about how they manage their local group here.

Ask them directly!

If none of the above have helped you, informal sharing is quick and easy for small groups. If you are a trusted organisation, and you can think of another group that might have something that you would like to borrow, why not ask? There’s a chance that you could work something out between yourselves and begin to develop a mutually beneficial relationship. 

Sharing isn’t always possible for high value equipment like PA systems and power tools due to insurance policies, but depending on the circumstances, you might be able to insure things affordably for a day or so under your name. 

For cheaper items like costumes, bean bags, tables or glasses, lots of organisations are willing to share in the interest of helping the creative sector in Oxford to become more sustainable.

So there you have it – sharing in Oxfordshire is that easy. Your events and art projects can be built by the community around you, saving you money and carbon emissions. Let me know how you get on!

How can cities be designed with communities and our planet in mind?

Adapt Transform was an interdisciplinary exhibition exploring urban design and creativity, on display across two sites – Modern Art Oxford and The Glass Tank Gallery at Oxford Brookes University from August to September 2022.

The exhibition looked at community experiences of urban design that impact the transformation of places over time. It brought together a range of lived experiences to explore how the planning and design of cities affects the way we live. 

The artworks in Adapt Transform featured creative works and ideas including maps, data and documentation, painting and performance, public sculpture, modelling and prototypes.

The exhibition was collaboratively curated by a group of volunteers from Modern Art Oxford, and the work on display is by artists and creatives who responded to a county-wide call out in Spring 2022.

Green Arts Oxfordshire Network were successful applicants, exhibiting 12 banners made by you, Oxfordshire’s creative community!

On 5th April 2022 Green Arts Oxfordshire Network hosted a day to kick off Marmalade at the Old Fire Station, bringing together Oxfordshire’s cultural organisations, artists and anybody wanting to respond creatively to the climate crisis. Participants collectively reimagined how we produce creative projects in response to the climate and ecological crisis. Together, we explored how to move from anxiety and denial to optimism and activism.

Activist, designer and artist Siân Klein hosted a banner making workshop during the session using recycled plastic bags that participants had been asked to bring with them beforehand. The banners displayed in Adapt Transform are a creative response to words and phrases from the conversations that took place, imagining the ways that art could save the world.

Below, a young activist shares her response to Adapt Transform:

“I like interactive artwork because you can make the decision in it. How you interact with the artwork changes the way you see the work.

I liked the house (artwork by Deborah Pill) I spent time looking at it – because the text was hard to read because the words were split between the panels. The sandbags looked like cushions and I wanted to climb inside it. If I was asked to name the chief benefits of the house, I would say the house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to daydream in peace.

I am a daydreamer, I dream about a lot of things that I’ve done before and my plans on what I’m going to do. I sometimes dream about the planet – I want everyone to have a happy life.”

Selected creatives in Adapt Transform are: Alexander Stavrou, Ash Goller, Atkins Urban Nature Lab, David Gasca, Deborah Pill, Green Arts Oxfordshire Network, Jan-Hendrik Höhnk, Jimi Cullen, Katrin Wilhelm & Sterling Mackinnon, Makespace, Mark James, Muesli Collective, Nor Greenhalgh, and Thomas Nicolaou.

Adapt Transform is co-curated by: Alan Edgington, Antony Mikallou, Dominika Jankowska, Hamideh Rimaz, Helen Frankland,  Ignacia Heredia Contreras, Jason Wong, Karen Herring, Katya Mora, Lauren Waller, Lucy Jacobs, Neil Rendell, Roland Gallivo, Shamim Rehman, and Stu Allsopp with guests architect Wongani Mwanza (Transition by Design) and Georgia Watson, Professor of Urban Design at Oxford Brookes University.

Art Can Save The World

What role does art play in the climate crisis?

Why should we as artists and cultural organisations take action, as a generally underfunded sector with a smaller carbon emissions impact than other sectors like transport or agriculture? We have other issues to address, why should it be us?

Because… it all intersects. We can’t have climate justice without social justice and racial justice, and vice versa. We ALL need to start thinking about our carbon emissions. We ALL need to change. A huge, cultural shift needs to happen if we’re going to prevent further irreversible climate breakdown. And there’s a keyword there – culture.

Who drives culture? We do! The artists, the musicians, the museums, the film makers, the theatres, the festivals and so on.

Cultural leaders have a huge part to play in advocating for climate, social and racial justice. We can lead the way through the work that we create, as well as how we create it. We can influence cultural change and with that, policy change.

As Hidden Spire Creative Collective writer Lucy said, ‘people can’t be told, they need to feel.’ Art makes people feel. Art has the power to save the world.

On 5th April 2022, Green Arts Oxfordshire Network hosted a day to kick off ‘Marmalade‘ at the Old Fire Station, bringing together Oxfordshire’s cultural organisations, artists and anybody wanting to respond creatively to the climate crisis. 

In a session called ‘Art Can Save The World’, participants collectively reimagined how we produce creative projects in response to the climate and ecological crisis. Together, we explored how to move from anxiety and denial to optimism and activism.

During the session, participants imagined creative projects that respond to categories of the Green Arts Charter, a 10 point pledge and guide on how to collectively work towards climate justice and a zero-carbon future.

Activist, designer and artist Siân Klein hosted a banner making workshop during the session using recycled plastic bags that participants had been asked to bring with them beforehand. People, words and plastic bags flew around the room, and community artwork was created. The banners we made are a creative response to words and phrases from the conversations that took place, imagining the ways that art could save the world.

We tried to apply the cornerstones of the charter to the event itself, choosing sustainable options wherever possible, utilising the power of the network. The heat press used was borrowed from a member of the Oxford community, using Pedal and Post to deliver it from Littlemore to the Old Fire Station with zero-emissions. The heat proof gloves were borrowed from Flo’s The Place in the Park, by foot.

The banners were strung up at the Old Fire Station for the rest of the week, before we took the conversation and the artwork created from it outside to the streets! Fusion Arts displayed them in their #WindowGalleries for the rest of April.

The #WindowGalleries is an exciting project that creates innovative exhibitions in windows along Friars Entry in Oxford. It is a collaboration between Fusion Arts and the Randolph Hotel by Graduate Hotels that aims to connect and support Oxford’s communities, creating a lively space for the public to experience inspiring work by local artists. Rejuvenating the area in this manner helps bring vibrancy and intrigue to the otherwise empty windows that so many people pass by each day – now a fun way to engage with new art!

In the spirit of recycling and uplifting voices on climate action, we exhibited the banners created for a third time at Modern Art Oxford and Oxford Brookes University’s Glass Tank gallery, as part of Adapt Transform.

The Adapt Transform exhibition looks at community experiences of urban design that impact the transformation of places over time. It brings together a range of lived experiences to explore how the planning and design of cities affects the way we live. It’s another great example of how art can advocate for a better world, and we are very proud to have been a part of it.

We’ll leave you with the takeaways people shared at the end of the Art Can Save The World session in April. Here’s some of the things you said when we asked…

What will you do differently:

• DISRUPTION
• Include the rest of the world – we are in the same boat
• Find out about other local art projects related to climate
• Connect Collaborate Create
• Consider the elements of the charter in every project / action
• Work in partnership – community groups
• FAIRTRADE
• Focus energy and attention on what really matters
• Get informed, make something, talk to more people, more often… Act decisively! Connect community level action with bigger structures
• Be more proactive in going to Climate Crisis initiatives in Oxford + engaging with the charter
• Doing Differently: Look to work with new partners/networks
• Reach out to other artists, creatives, thinkers and writers! 😊 more time, NRG devoted to this
• Dream pragmatically
• PLURALIST ACTIVITY plus INDIVIDUAL EFFORTS = MUTUAL PROGRESS!
• Start more conversations about sustainability + climate action
• Link the climate crisis to creativity and the arts much more

What do you need?

• Time, space, support, network + team
• CREATIVE IDEAS
• Info on the steps I can take to make a real difference
• To be nudged and encouraged
• More group support
• Open mind and imagination and support from likeminded organisations
• I need spaces to get people together, To do community project work. Workable buildings or a room?!
• Work Quicker / Be more GREEN / Do more in the arts
• Continue making connections and spreading the word to new communities
• Time to think and discuss about our impacts
• A better understanding of carbon costs/energy costs of buildings and energy systems. A consultant or instructional.
• … A plan!
• Capacity, finding space & KNOWLEDGE
• HOPE INSPIRATION
• Find communities, Listen, share, adapt
• Confidence, community
• Teamwork
• Time and Patience, Bravery and Resources
• Courage!

What will you do differently? What do you need?

Join the Green Arts Oxfordshire Network by signing the charter to play your part in tackling the climate crisis.

About the artist:

Siân Klein is a BA Fine Art and Film Studies graduate from Oxford Brookes University, currently studying MA Graphic Design at Brighton University. She is a freelance Graphic Designer and active Creatives Coordinator of XR Brighton, where she creates protest artwork and coordinates creative events. Siân uses recycled or second-hand materials and rubbish in her work, which is often text based and influenced by collective action to implement change.