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Earth Quest at Barbican: Your Ecological Adventure

A colourful character wearing headgear is sweeping the floor. There are newspapers, gardening tools, a boilersuit and bee costume and a sign stating 'Care in Progress'
  • Written byAbbi Fletcher/ Cat Cooper
  • Published date 12 August 2022
A colourful character wearing headgear is sweeping the floor. There are newspapers, gardening tools, a boilersuit and bee costume and a sign stating 'Care in Progress'
Jake Stephenson Bartley/Ki. Photo courtesy the artist.

Monday 29 August

It’s Our Time on Earth. What are we going to do with it?

As the Our Time on Earth exhibition comes to a close, join an eco-inspired journey across the Barbican centre on bank holiday Monday 29 August and explore how creativity can inspire climate action.

Experience over 10 free interactive installations and activities curated by UAL Climate Emergency Network as they activate the site to inspire and mobilise urgent action.

Guided by creative practitioners spanning design, fashion, science, performance, media and screen, Barbican Centre will play host to a cerebral collection of sensory experiences promoting unity, equality, curiosity, and discovery. Embark on your own earth quest, encouraged by distinctive encounters that reconnect self to earth, and remind us of the possibilities in playful consciousness and collective action. Find hope in tension, power in vulnerability and courage in the age of emergency.

  • Well of Possibilities: Connect to elemental energies in a guided sensory voyage around the Barbican estate with ecological artist Alisa Ruzavina and her Earthkins; and discover what you have to offer the earth
  • Parachute as a paradigm: Join in games involving a parachute and explore your regenerative future, in this playful activity that acts as a metaphor for the collective climate movement
  • Table at Terrapolis: Sit at our living table where you are invited to listen deeply. A sound art installation pairing stethoscopes with our own gut micro-biomes, this is a celebration of the more-than-human beings that make us human
  • Sympoiesis: a bioinspired performance: Help create a giant collaborative crochet piece, inspired by Laurane Le Goff’s study of other species. A dancer will perform while together we create the continuity of her costume and grow a common body of upcycled thread
  • Another way of maintenance: Meander with roaming reporter Ki as they investigate and report on behalf of the natural world, provoking empathetic new strategies of care to shelter humans, wildlife and ecosystems
  • The flesh of the Earth, reshaping our relations: Feel your way back to the earth using clay and identify how you would like to be in relation to the planet
  • Generous Waste: Hand make paper using the waste of the Barbican ecosystem, and draw or write on it your dreams for a kinder climate future. In this creative and tactile activity, you’re invited to consider the decentralisation and decolonisation of urban contexts through the metamorphosis of waste
  • Why not eat Knot?: Join a multi-sensory table where milk is knitted, celery knotted, wool cooked and linen spiced. Why not eat knot? serves a unique multisensory experience to better understand and navigate the world with all 5 of our senses
  • Wheel of Fortune Tellus: Spin a wheel to weave a tale of planetary fortune and prompt hopeful new narratives. This interactive activity explores the unseen forces of change that we can harness to imagine alternative futures.

The Climate Emergency Network is a creative community of UAL staff, students and alumni where ideas are shared, justice defined and fought for, collective action planned and where ritual, ceremony and the unexpected are welcome. The Network led UAL’s Carnival of Crisis in response to COP26 and united staff, students and partners to champion practical climate action for Earth Day.

In December, UAL was ranked 7th Greenest University in the UK in People & Planet’s Green League. UAL’s commitments to addressing the climate emergency include embedding sustainability and climate justice across the entire curriculum since 2019 and the publication of a wide-reaching Climate Action Plan. Work is ongoing towards the target of becoming net-zero by 2040.

Event information

Free, booking not required.

Guests can join the quest anytime from 1pm. Last entry at 4.30pm.

Your quest begins in the Barbican Conservatory, where our guides will help select your route before embarking on your own journey towards a more sustainable planet.

The Earth Quest collaborators

Led by UAL Climate Emergency Network: Instagram: @climate_emergency_network I  Twitter: @ual_climate