Cultures of Climate

Town Island Exhibition Catalogue

Through textiles, sculpture, video, and painting, Matheson examines themes of place, identity, belonging and drawing on the 1950's migration of Carriacou's people to Britain. Building on cultural connections, Matheson has been able to develop his practice and engage with local communities in Huddersfield, UK and Carriacou, Grenada, through a series of research workshops. 

Key themes included culture, migration, the history of windrush and the recent environmental and community destruction cause by hurricane Beryl in the Caribbean. 

Opening times: Mon - Wed & Sat 11am - 4pm

Sovereign Design Galleries and Toast House Café, Queen Street South Annexe, Huddersfield, HD1 3DR 

Town Island was delivered in partnership with Yorkshire Contemporary, University of Huddersfield and the School of Arts and Humanities, Kirklees Council, Cultures of Creative Health and Cultures of Climate.

Town Island was funded by the UK Government, the British Council and Arts Council England.

 

One of the most important features of the School of Arts and Humanities is the support students and academics receive from the technical teams. These staff members are the unsung heroes of academia. Their expertise drives innovation in thinking and making across all subject areas, but these contributions are not always recognised for the valuable resource they are.

Many of our technical team are highly accomplished practitioners, and this group show features contributions from five members of technical staff who present work that showcases their amazing skills and ideas, bringing to life creative innovation in fashion, textiles, film and sculpture.

This exhibition is part of our Cultures of Climate programme for the academic year 2024-2025. The work on display foregrounds strategies and practices of re-using, re-making and re-thinking across a range of areas often involving everyday but extraordinary practices. Each piece explores how we can re-imagine and re-use materials in ways that are both innovative, ethical and aesthetic.

Themes encompass variations of traditional craft techniques, the spatial practices of walking, digital innovations with film and navigating contemporary innovation in the context of the climate crisis. 

Exhibition Opening Times:

Monday – Thursday & Saturday: 10am – 3pm

Friday: 10am – 2:30pm

(Closed Easter Bank Holiday Weekend)

 

Address: Sovereign Design House, Queen Street South Annexe, Huddersfield HD1 3DR.

Our Climate Canvas is a collaborative project between second year students and Cultures of Climate. Work on display is a culmination of work across three strands: Fine Art BA (Hons), Illustration BA (Hons) and Fine Art and Illustration BA (Hons).

'Climate' was briefed as part of the second term project as part of their Studio Practice module, where students were encouraged to look at the current state of our world and the culture of our climate. Students created visual responses that directly tackle a number of themes, ranging from recyclable materials, to fertility rates, to animal welfare.

Exhibition Dates: 24 March - extended to 1 May

Exhibition Opening Times: Mon to Fri 9am - 5pm

Address: Atrium, Barbara Hepworth Building, University of Huddersfield

Heavy Water is an art collective comprising Victoria Lucas, Maud Haya-Baviera and Joanna Whittle. Their long term artistic research project, established in 2020, responds creatively to traces of history, situating archive-based research in a contemporary context through the production of artworks. Heavy Water takes its name from D2O, a form of water used for the stabilisation of volatile matter. The materiality of Heavy Water is mystical; permeating organic bodies, calming violent creations, grounding and giving weight to something fluid and intangible. It is representative of their processes of investigation and methods of making, developed in response to shared subject matter.

Heavy Water Collective’s collaboration is distinctly curatorial. Artworks developed in parallel by the three artists are brought together in configurations that generate new insight that is relational and responsive to the archives and collections investigated. As part of the Cultures of Climate programme, Haya-Baviera, Lucas and Whittle will respond to the collections held at Heritage Quay and the West Yorkshire Archives Service, developing threads of research that, through sustained dialogue, will weave a network of meaning between the resulting artworks for an exhibition at Sovereign Design House in September 2025. 

The Heavy Water collective formed during a residency with the Freelands Foundation based at Site Gallery in Sheffield. It was at this time that the collective members discovered overlappings in their work and wider practices, particularly in their archive and collection based research in the production of new work. Since their first presentation at Site Gallery in 2021 they have gone on to work on numerous projects together as part of their galvanized practice through an ongoing commitment to their collective research ideologies.

To learn more about Heavy Water Collective, and each individual artist, please visit:

• Heavy Water Collective
• Maud Haya-Baviera
• Victoria Lucas
• Joanna Whittle

Cutting Waste, Creating Wonky explores the beauty of imperfection in fashion by presenting garments that challenge conventional design and pattern-cutting techniques. Reimagining traditional methods, the exhibition emphasizes fabric-efficient clothing, turning irregularities into positive design features to reduce fashion waste.

By altering grainlines and embracing unconventional pattern cuts, Cutting Waste, Creating Wonky pushes the boundaries of garment construction, blending experimental design with wearability. The exhibition showcases how innovative approaches can transform our understanding of fashion and sustainability.

Dr. Claire Evans, Senior Lecturer in Fashion at the University of Huddersfield, began her career in the 1990s designing garments in Moldgreen, Huddersfield. This exhibition traces her journey from traditional fashion to radical, waste-conscious design. Featuring pieces from her original fashion line alongside jersey cotton skirts that explore challenging fabric-efficient approaches, Cutting Waste, Creating Wonky celebrates creative resistance and responsible fashion innovation.

Cutting Waste, Creating Wonky is supported by Cultures of Climate and University of Huddersfield. It is in collaboration with WOVEN and Kirklees Museum and Galleries.

Exhibition Dates: Monday 26 May - Saturday 28 June
Exhibition Opening Times: Mon, 11am - 3pm, Tues - Thurs, 11am - 5pm, Sat & Sun, 12pm - 5pm
Address: The Tolson Museum, Ravensknowle Park, Wakefield Rd, Moldgreen, Huddersfield, HD5 8DJ

The Cultures of Climate Art Trail spans between Huddersfield and Dewsbury, with exhibitions exploring the role of art as an asset for social and environmental sustainability.

Recycle En Masse, exhibited in the Toast House Cafe, is a collection of printed reproductions of paintings and photographs depicting citizens of Dewsbury, with views of Shoddy and Mungo Mills. These images are part of the site-specific Cultures of Climate Arts Trail, between Huddersfield and Dewsbury, exploring the role of art as an asset for social and environmental sustainability. Visitors are invited to consider the current climate crisis, against the backdrop of the nineteenth and twentieth century production of Shoddy and Mungo - the earliest and largest example of recycled textile fabric. Instead of celebrating the industrial ingenuity, or scale of recycling, the photographs (by Fred Hartley) and townscapes (by Gerald Park and former Head of the School of Art in Huddersfield - Noël Spencer) help shine a light on the social contexts of the industry.

The Cultures of Climate Arts Trail 29 May – 19 June 2025

Recycle En Masse: Toast House Café, University of Huddersfield Queen St South Annexe, Huddersfield HD1 3DR. Opening times: 10am-3pm Mon-Thurs 10am-2:30pm Fri.

Soar Away (by Deborah Rundle): Dewsbury Town Hall, Wakefield Old Rd, Dewsbury WF12 8DG, Opening Times: 9am–5pm Mon-Fri

Hillstone Fibre Arts Exhibition: The Arcade Pop-Up, 25 Princess of Wales Precinct, Dewsbury WF13 1NH, Opening Times: 10am-2pm Wed–Fri (until 30 June).

View Virtual Exhibition on Artsteps

Cultures of Climate: Embedding Cultures of Climate into the Curriculum
An interdisciplinary exhibition from the University of Huddersfield, School of Arts and Humanities

The climate crisis is often framed through science and policy, but it is also a deeply human story, shaped by culture, history, language, and imagination. The arts and humanities have a vital role to play in how we understand, communicate, and respond to the challenges of a changing planet.

As we draw from lived experience, critical analysis, and creative expression, disciplines like literature, history, design, and visual art help us explore urgent questions about how societies experience environmental change – past and present; including how we can tell new stories about climate realities and envision alternative, more equitable practices and narratives, as well as thinking about sustainability in the context of making, designing, and building.

Through speculative futures, historical perspectives, and experimental practice, the arts and humanities offer tools to reimagine the world differently. They foster empathy, challenge assumptions, and create space for hope, reflection, and action. In a time of ecological urgency, creativity is not a luxury, but a necessity.

This exhibition showcases a dynamic range of creative, critical, and practice-based responses to the climate crisis, produced by students and staff across seven disciplines within the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Huddersfield. Drawing on the collective strength of Photography, Architecture, Fashion and Textiles, Graphic Design, Contemporary Art and Illustration, History, and English Literature, the work on display represents a shared commitment to embedding cultures of climate into the university curriculum.

At the heart of this project is the belief that the climate breakdown is not just an environmental or scientific issue but a profound cultural challenge that touches every aspect of human life. The Cultures of Climate programme —supported by the Centre for Cultural Ecologies in Art, Design and Architecture — invites students to critically engage with climate issues through the lens of their own disciplines, fostering new ways of thinking, making, and communicating.

Contemporary Art and Illustration students explore their role as artists within the climate conversation. Through Studio Practice modules, they develop artworks that provoke reflection and encourage public dialogue around environmental change which situates the work within wider cultural debates.

In Fashion Design, the emphasis is on practical, sustainable solutions. Students engage in waste-efficient design and zero-waste pattern-cutting workshops, exploring techniques from modular design to visible mending. These hands-on sessions encourage an ethos of repair, reuse, and thoughtful production within the fashion industry.

English Literature students engage with eco-theory through creative and critical practice, responding to complex theoretical texts with storyboards, creative writing, and visual responses. Their work demonstrates how imaginative thinking can challenge existing narratives and open up new avenues for understanding the climate crisis.

In History, students explore how societies in the medieval and early modern periods experienced and responded to climate disruptions. These historical perspectives deepen our understanding of the long relationship between climate and human resilience, revealing how shifts in weather patterns shaped everything from disease to agriculture and fashion.

Architecture final-year students design a speculative ‘Museum of Climate’—a public space that reimagines how the built environment can educate, inspire, and activate community engagement around the climate breakdown. Their proposals highlight architecture’s potential to serve as both a physical and cultural catalyst for sustainable futures.

Graphic Design students respond to live briefs addressing climate challenges far and wide, from the local context of Kirklees and Yorkshire to the wider issues facing cultures around the world. Their work spans from sustainable packaging to ethical branding and political messaging, showcasing design’s potential to influence behaviours and raise awareness on pressing environmental issues.

Finally, second year Photography students use experimental, practice-led methods to visualise and translate everyday effects of climate impacts. Through lens-based media, they document the changing landscapes of daily life, revealing the often subtle but significant ways through which experiences of climate reflect our commonalities more than our differences.

Together, these diverse yet interconnected projects underscore the urgency of climate action and demonstrate the power of the arts and humanities to re-imagine and re-envision alternative futures. The Cultures of Climate exhibition is not only a celebration of student creativity and academic innovation, but also a call to rethink how we live, learn, and create, in an era of tumultuous and rapid change.

We thank all the course leaders and students who have been involved in this exhibition and look forward to further collaborations and opportunities. If you would like to find out more about Cultures of Climate and our forthcoming book publication, please contact: culturesof@hud.ac.uk 

Curatorial overview & Virtual Environment Design:

Dr Laura Mateescu & Dr Danilo Di Mascio

View the

Growing Colour Together was one of the flagship projects for the 2023 WOVEN in Kirklees festival with the ambition to create a district-wide, natural-dye, colour garden! We worked in partnership across the district, aiming to give everyone the opportunity to ‘have a grow,’ use what’s grown to make natural dyes, and learn about the environmental implications of chemical dyes and what we buy.

Cultures of Climate is the 2025 public realm programme from the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield.

English Literature and History students engage with eco-theory through creative and critical practice, responding to complex theoretical texts with storyboards, creative writing, and visual responses. Their work demonstrates how imaginative thinking can challenge existing narratives and open up new avenues for understanding the climate crisis. Work features students across all year groups, but primarily comes from first year students on the Critical Thinking module.

Exhibition contributions were supervised by Dr Iona Murphy and Dr Joe Hopkinson.

Exhibition Dates: 30 June 2025 - 10 July 2025

Exhibition Times: Weekdays, 10am - 4pm

Address: Barbara Hepworth Building Mezzanine, University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, Huddersfield, HD1 3DH