Hope and Inspiration Found Across the Vale of White Horse: Creative Climate Action Conversations

We often need to talk about the causes of climate change, its impacts and solutions – which sounds a bit depressing. But that isn’t the case – in a rural area of Oxfordshire, we discovered an abundance of people using creativity as a powerful tool for change. Through our Creative Climate Action Conversations project, we uncovered glimmers of hope and inspiration across the Vale of White Horse, thanks to the District Council’s Climate Action Fund.

Following our funded Arts & Culture Carbon Literacy Training sessions in 2024, we brought local creatives together to discuss sustainability topics and solutions in more depth. The aim was to shine a light on useful projects and resources that could inspire and equip people to take action, whilst building a sense of community, resilience and motivation. Education is so important when it comes to tackling climate change, but we need connection and hope just as much!

The Green Arts Oxfordshire Network community in the Vale of White Horse helped us to design and deliver 4 community gatherings:

Arts & Culture Carbon Literacy Training & lunch on World Environment Day
Creative Climate Action Conversation with Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck as part of Oxfordshire Great Big Green Week
Reimagining Waste with Sustainable Wantage at Makespace Wantage, and a community meal from Down to Earth Cafe Wantage
Past Meets Possible: Reimagining Cultural Buildings for a Climate-Ready Future at the Vale & Downland Museum

Conversations and feedback from one event would shape the next, and we uncovered many inspiring projects and resources.

A room full of people sit around tables talking. A laptop screen says "climate change and you..."

Arts & Culture Carbon Literacy Training

The training usually involves 15 people, but 22 people showed up to learn, even on a rainy day!
Attendees were creative, attentive, engaged and came with lots of questions. People voiced the need for more spaces to dive into topics like building retrofit, waste, dietary choices and transport in more detail.
We enjoyed a community lunch made with waste and surplus food, as an example of sustainable procurement.
100% of participants asked would recommend this Carbon Literacy Training course to others.
100% of participants asked said that they were “extremely concerned about climate change” following the training.
100% of participants asked said that they were “extremely motivated to take action on climate change” following the training.

“The Carbon Literacy training really helped to provide a wider context for the challenges that we are all facing with climate change. The course helped me feel positive about the actions that we have taken as an organisation to date, and gave impetus to keep going on this journey, both in terms of building interventions and sharing our story with the wider public to hopefully inspire others to take action. “

Lisa Gale, Museum Manager, Vale and Downland Museum

“Super informative, accessible and real without focussing on the negative… you created a positive space that empowers the individual with not only information for change but more importantly, hope!”

Lucy Hoult, Co-Director of WhatNot Theatre

“I feel more informed and equipped to make change in my workplace / community.”

Anonymous attendee

Creative Climate Action Conversations: Reimagining Waste

For this gathering we collaborated with Sustainable Wantage and Makespace Wantage to bring together local creatives to explore how we can harness arts and culture as tools to reduce waste through both the ways that we work and how we inspire others. Through a talk, discussion and creative weaving workshop with Andrea Sharp using scrap fabric, artists and community members connected over a meal made with surplus food from Down to Earth Cafe. We shared inspiring case studies, signposted to resources and suppliers and encouraged collaboration for creative waste reduction, providing motivation and building resilience through a sense of community.

Some sustainable suppliers and initiatives shared included:

Online sites like Trash Nothing, Olio and Freecycle
Library of Things projects (Sustainable Wantage, Sustainable Didcot, Share Oxford, Bicester Green)
Oxford Wood Recycling
Haynes Of Challow
Swap Shops
The Makery, Orinoco and other creative scrap stores

“This was a really wonderful gathering, full of facts, tips, inspiration, resources, and new skills to learn! My daughter and I went home buzzing with ideas.”

“The group was engaged & inspired, exchanging ideas & sharing experiences. I’m sure all of us will be thoughtful about our own choices but also prepared to raise the issue with others.”

For this event photographs were kindly taken by Wilson-Cook Photography.

Past Meets Possible: Reimagining Cultural Buildings for a Climate-Ready Future

What do the cultural buildings of the future look like? We got together with creatives, cultural orgs and community members to see what the Vale & Downland Museum have been doing to future-proof their historic building.

We heard about the potential for regenerative community building with Oxford Eco-Urbanism and community energy with Low Carbon Hub, and imagined a future where cultural buildings are sanctuaries, regenerate ecosystems and are designed by the people that use them.

The tour, talks and discussion ignited enthusiasm about exploring opportunities for energy efficiency, generation and habitat creation through collective future-proofing measures for local cultural buildings, leading to an ongoing research project with Oxford University’s Science Together programme, exploring an Energy Culture Consortium!

Together we imagined…

What if… communities played a part in future-proofing cultural buildings?

“We could have empowerment, community spirit, and agency, combatting loneliness and powerlessness.”

“Cultural buildings would be accessible, beautiful, colourful, green and growing.”

“We’d need hard work, legal permissions, organisation, money, resources and political will.”

What if… cultural buildings regenerated ecosystems & communities?

“We’d bring art to communities in communities. We’d involve people from lots of different communities.”

What if… cultural buildings could be sanctuaries from climate change?

“Community connection, shared meals, skill sharing / learning, making and temperature control would all happen here.”

So what’s next?

These Creative Climate Conversations created much needed spaces for connection, inspiration, and motivation. Together we planted the seeds of many exciting collaborations including our current Energy Culture Consortium feasibility research project! Get in touch or sign up to our newsletter to be kept in the loop about this project and other green arts news, events, resources and opportunities.

We are grateful to the Vale of White Horse District Council Climate Action Fund for funding this Creative Climate Action Conversations project, 2024-25.