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7:00 PM

Ackroyd & Harvey: The Art of Activism by Fiona Cunningham-Reid

Film Screening|Part of London Art+Climate Week

  • Goethe-Institut London, London

  • Free Tickets
Free Tickets via Eventbrite

Activists in front of the Tate Modern, one sitting on a horse © Terry Matthews

Activists in front of the Tate Modern, one sitting on a horse © Terry Matthews

As part of London Art+Climate Week, running parallel to COP30, we invite you to a free screening of Ackroyd & Harvey: The Art of Activism by award winning documentary maker Fiona Cunningham-Reid. The screening also serves as a prelude to our Goethe Annual Lecture, which will be presented by Ackroyd & Harvey on Thursday, 20 November 2025 at the Goethe-Institut London.
Internationally acclaimed artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey work at the intersection of art, activism, biology and ecology. This thoughtful and intimate portrait follows them as they develop, install and re-visit their art works, such as the monolithic sculptures of Ash to Ash (White Horse Country Park, Kent 2018 – 2025), their updated Grass Coats for Extinction Rebellion climate protests in 2019 and their ongoing Beuys’ Acorns projects, about which they will talk more during their lecture.

Large green sign made from grass being lowered down onto the shore of the river Thames, with photographers taking photos of it © Andy Sewell

Uncompromisingly preoccupied with the climate and ecological crisis, Ackroyd & Harvey’s work has become a rallying cry for the environmental movement, winning them international acclaim and a global following. With some of their pieces standing in prestigious galleries and others embedded in nature, their work not only references the natural world, but uses natural materials and processes. The film offers singular access into the lives, work and partnership of the artists, and their quest to shake humanity into action on climate catastrophe, including their collaboration with Extinction Rebellion, and co-founding the movement Culture Declares Emergency.

Large green sign made from grass floating on the Thames river © Adele Harvey Ackroyd

UK 2024, colour, 80 mins. In English.
Directed by Fiona Cunningham-Reid
 

Free Tickets via Eventbrite


This event is part of London Art+Climate Week, a multi-day event of exhibitions and activations across London focussed on climate action in the arts. Presented by Gallery Climate Coalition and gowithYamo, London Art+Climate Week runs parallel to COP30 from 12-16 November.

About the Speakers

Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey

Artistic duo

Ackroyd & Harvey have been investigating Nature-based processes of growth and decay for over three decades, addressing the forces of anthropogenic climate breakdown and bio-diversity loss that are rapidly reshaping and rewriting Earth’s systems. Their time-based artworks intersect art, activism, architecture, biology, ecology and history, evolving through extended research in response to people and place, interfacing their profound interest in local ecologies and global planetary concerns.

In 2019, they co-founded Culture Declares Emergency, a collective of international and UK-based Hubs, sharing practical support to seek socio-ecological justice, and working towards regenerative change through culture, heritage and the arts. They have received international awards and prizes for their pioneering bio-chemical photography, including the Royal Academy Rose Award and have been widely commissioned for monumental interventions in the public realm, including London Olympics 2012; The David Attenborough Building, Cambridge; Aarhus Triennial; Derry-Londonderry UK City of Culture

Recent exhibitions include, The Gallery Season 5, Brazil/UK; Culture Reforesting, Orleans House Gallery, London; La Galeria, UC Merced, California; Science Gallery, London; European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024; RA Summer Exhibition; Hayward Gallery, London; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, USA; 23RD Biennale of Sydney, Australia; Somerset House, London; Lewisham Borough of Culture, London 2022; Tate Modern, London; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Picture: © Andrew Shaylor
 

Sean Rainbird

Sean Rainbird was born in Hong Kong. He studied in London before becoming a curator then senior curator at the Tate Gallery (1987-2006). He left to take over as director at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (2006-2012) before leading the National Gallery of Ireland between 2012 and 2022. As well as responsibility for multiple acquisitions he made several exhibitions of works by German artists, including two at the Goethe-Institut of works by artists receiving DAAD grants (1989-90), Gerhard Richter (1991-2), Rebecca Horn (1997), Max Beckmann (2003), Joseph Beuys (2001 and 2005), and the Blue Rider Artist Wassily Kandinsky (2006). In Dublin he presented the paintings of Emil Nolde (2017).

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