In 2021 we were engaged as curators by arts and environment charity Platform Earth to develop their inaugural exhibition in aid of their environmental carbon capture projects. The Sussex Kelp Restoration Project was earmarked as their first beneficiary. Dubbed the ‘Great British Sea Forest’, this previously vast swathe of kelp off our Sussex coast could, once fully restored, sequester the equivalent of London’s art industry’s emissions each year. We conceptualised a project that would directly demonstrate the need for carbon capture and green-thinking in the art world, and organised a collaboration with Graviky Labs and MIT to use their new Air-Ink - an innovative, carbon-negative black ink that is made entirely from sequestered air pollution. Each Air-Ink pen holds 40 minutes of pollution from a single car. Artists were then invited to create works made using this carbon negative medium on recycled paper, framed in FSC certified wood.
Artists involved included Charlotte Colbert, Philip Colbert, Shezad Dawood, Tracey Emin, Brian Eno, Anya Gallaccio, Sir Antony Gormley, Carolina Mazzolari, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Cornelia Parker, Conrad Shawcross, Gavin Turk and Alison Wilding RA, among others. We arranged for the project to launch at Frieze London alongside the Gallery Climate Coalition. Since its launch, the project has gone from strength to strength, returning to Frieze London the following year, as well as the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair and Superblue.
