News / Arts
Arts Hub launches creative Green Futures week
Spike Island, a community of arts organisations and practitioners on Cumberland Road that calls itself an ecosystem, demonstrated its commitment to environmental issues when it launched a campaign in 2024 laying out a plan to become carbon neutral by 2030.
Since then it has been used as a case study for creative organisations engaging with the climate crisis by the Gallery Climate Coalition and the Arts Newspaper described it as “an environmental beacon”.
The latest in these efforts, taking place March 2-6, is a Green Futures week of hands-on activities, talks and exhibitions under the strapline ‘Big Dreaming’.
Green Week visitors can take part in mending and gardening workshops and a book group as well as visiting two themed exhibitions – photo: Lisa Whiting
“We’re organising Spike Green Futures Week to move beyond talking about the climate crisis and into shared, practical action,” said Green Team lead Patricija Poikane.
“Creating space for our community to exchange knowledge, test ideas and be ahead of the curve in terms of making contemporary art exhibition and production a sustainable practice.”
The programme, put together in partnership with Hotwells & Cliftonwood Community Association, is intended to be the first of what will become an annual event.
Beginning on March 2 with a talk on local community climate action and a reading group discussion led by the Utopian Book Collective, the week continues with a clothes mending workshop, a social gardening session and a participatory evening reflecting on the Ecotones project that explores interactions between urban and rural environments.
The hub saved 6,000kg of carbon last year, by measures including installing over 200 solar panels – photo: Dan Weill
All week, visitors can view the exhibition Tidal Bodies that explores the geo-personal exchange between artists making work at Spike Island and neighbouring waterways the River Avon and floating harbour.
Also on display is a creative showcase by Birmingham City University architecture students has been inspired by the harbour and Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis that sees the Earth as a complete, self-regulating living organism.
The launch of the Green Week is part of a raft of initiatives planned or in progress by Spike Island to help them reach their sustainability goals, including installation of 202 solar panels in April last year.
The hub calculated they saved 6,000kg of CO₂ emissions between March and August 2025, the equivalent of planting 386 trees or powering three average UK homes for a year.
Green Week: Big Dreaming takes place at Spike Island from March 2-9. Find the full programme at spikeisland.org.uk/programme/events/spike-green-futures-week-2026
Main image: Max McClure
Read next:
- Community climate action expands to West of England
- One Love One Planet: Bringing the climate conversation home
- Traffic down on all but two streets in East Bristol Liveable Neighbourhood
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