Keep your eyes peeled – our climate action artwork is coming to a billboard near you
Linsey Wynton, Project Manager of this year’s Grantham Climate Art Prize, shares why art is such a powerful way to communicate about the climate crisis, and where you can see our climate action-inspired murals on a billboard near you.
We were staggered to receive almost 1,200 entries from young people across Great Britain for our Grantham Climate Art Prize this year. The biennial competition invited 11 – 25-year-olds to depict a greener, cleaner future world – a world they’d like to see – inspired by our 9 things you can do about climate change.
Most of these young people had written powerful descriptions of the motivations behind their art work, highlighting how vital it is to amplify their demands for a more sustainable future for all inhabitants of this planet. Reading these gave me hope but also made me realise what a mammoth task we have to try to ensure their futures are protected.
Myself and Associate Producer Ian Whitaker formed a panel with our sponsors Octopus Energy to choose a shortlist of entrants. We shared these with the Turner Contemporary in Margate who helped identify the strongest entrants on this list.
As we had secured walls for three murals in Glasgow, Coventry and West Norwood in south London, we invited the mural artists and wall owners to help reach the final decisions of which designs would best fit the particular walls.
Here are our winning images displayed on billboards, alongside Samuel Webb’s design shown above:
In addition, these winning designs and the following six runner up designs are being showcased on billboards in London in the run up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), which launches on 30 November.
Runners up are:
- Orla Stack, 13, from Flintshire, in North Wales, with her design “Stopping pollution is the only solution” with a clock on top of images of a car in a thunder storm, sea ice melting, land becoming an arid dessert; and some remaining flowers and pollinators.
- Kelvin Chen, 13, from Wood Green, in North London, with his design showing three young people repainting the world green, fishing plastic waste from the ocean and installing wind turbines.
- Holly Barnes, 18, from Chorley, in Lancashire, with her design “Stary city night” inspired by van Gogh’s Stary Night with a call to “Invest in green energy”.
- Holly Williams, 19, from Wigan, in Greater Manchester, with her design “Go green – leave the car at home” showing a green mountainscape with a car wing mirror revealing the world heating.
- Lucy Bishop, 23, from Cheddar, in Somerset, with her design “Don’t turn a blind eye to earth’s cry” depicting two teenagers engrossed on their phones and ignoring the world on fire.
- Caitlin Melling, 20, from Wigan, in Greater Manchester, with her design “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” of a women transforming a garment into a blanket.
We also secured funding for a fourth mural in Pump House Lane, Nine Elms, close to the newly revamped Battersea Power station, from developer Ballymore for a Highly Commended Design and an exhibition of young people’s artwork inspired by the 9 things you can do about climate change.
The Highly Commended mural was designed by Aaryan Prabhaker, 12, from Barnet in north London, and calls on passers by to reduce their meat and dairy intake and eat more plant-based foods. It was painted by artists Karla Rosales Garcia and Roger Rigol.
Meanwhile, artwork featured in the exhibition is by the three winners, runners up Holly, Holly and Caitlin and shortlisted entrants Yamen from Bexley in south London, Latifatul from Hammersmith in west London and Alicia from Chelmsford in Essex.
The winners and runners up have also been showcased by our competition partner Octopus Energy on their website. View all the winner and runner-up designs.
Read this blog post from a previous winner of the Grantham Art Prize on how to create a winning design.
Find out what you can do about climate change in out Action Hub.
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