Artists and Sustainability: John-Paul Brown

In what ways do you feel your work might relate to issues of climate change and sustainability, in the content of the work, its narrative, conceptually or theoretically. How might it speak to or challenge public discourse?

My work is a cumulative investigation into the interconnectedness of earth system science and the human extraction of natural resources. Since 2016, I have witnessed several examples of industrial disregard and permanent ecological damage, from the drying up of the Great Salt Lake revealing its toxic bed and poisonous dust clouds – seeing the North Pacific garbage patch – documenting multiple climate protests and the vast tunnels of gypsum mines beneath our feet – to standing on a disappearing atoll that finally caused a paradigm shift – in both life and practice. 

More recently, I have become a part of several working groups. Para-lab members include an astrophysicist, particle scientist, nuclear materials scientist and soil ecologist. Collectively, we discuss art/science/climate interventions and investigations as alternative research-based solutions. 

All this research and experience combine to create multi-layered narratives that take form in site-specific installations, documentary photography, drawing and painting.  

With regards the materials, processes, and techniques you use to produce your work, are there any practical decisions you make with regards climate change and sustainability?

Yes, I have adapted my approach to image-making loads since 2017. The main issue was figuring out a new best-practice process for a low carbon digital workflow and retaining image quality. The result means self-imposed restrictions like limited captures, editing time allowance, file size or data storage limitations, and conscious choices to use public transport, opt-out of flash, tungsten lighting use and opt-in to an available light-only approach. It works fine for my documentation but requires shared ethics for commercial applications. 

The responsibility of an artwork’s life cycle at the point of conception has become highly significant to me. Recently, I printed some photographs on recyclable poster paper, my first prints since 2018. For me, it is a case of identifying restrictions which create fresh thinking towards making and presenting art. My installation materials have an evolving narrative from their origins to re-animation in multiple artworks.

All this makes me a fan of the temporary – utilising natural light triggering, spacial intervention, wind activations, walking activities and snowfall as creative assets. Chalk is suddenly my favourite medium. The most practical tip is to take extra time, care and attention to question extractive methods of working. One restriction I have is to periodically ask, could someone else recycle my studio contents.

In general, how do you feel galleries, art spaces, artworks and artists, might be able to contribute, what if any role do you feel they can play in a progressive conversation?

Progression can be made with collective contributions to low carbon art making and post-art recycling. These cross-sections have some traction between artists and galleries with real potential for slow-burn industry change. Low carbon art making should calculate all points of the process, especially those of joint endeavour. As is post-art recycling a mutual responsibility when commissioning. 

Oscar Wilde said, ‘When bankers get together, they talk about art – when artists get together, they talk money’. So let’s talk cash. 

Beyond the production and reach of informative, unresolved or inspiring art, it is necessary to question the origins of finance to avoid undermining institutional pledges and ambitious artwork. 

How we move our money is paramount, one of the most urgent climate responsibilities we must accept, not only as individual artists but, more importantly, as a collective industry. 

Every artwork sale, the percentage taken, institutional salary, cultural donation, transportation of work, grant awarded, industry gathering and so on has a banking transaction that will either support climate breakdown or contribute toward a green economy. Which is the bottom-up-top-down issue our industry should be leading on. Anti-power is in the pocket.

Are there any tips or advice, anything you have learnt you might want to share with other artists or our audiences? 

Self-sustaining care is important, and so is caring for fellow artists. It is good to realise all these climate issues are beyond individual control. Important too to retain hope and see the potential of technical and natural solutions, as is recognition for small acts of social change. Although systematic change is devastatingly slow-coming, it is also good to remember – the progressive steps that occur around us. For example, Castlefield Gallery’s plastic-free pledge of 2018 to hybrid futures to this spotlight series and recent Gallery Climate Coalition membership are all progressive steps in their journey.

My advice is to try and recognise levels of sensitivity to the climate crisis in our conversations. We are all experiencing the same issues but at different moments and from complex economic statuses. Realisations about the challenges we face can be overwhelming and trigger climate grief. Therefore, it is equally important to discuss with a degree of empathy. For a healthy dose of positive action and to chat about such issues with cultivated support, come along to a monthly Spark Artists meet. Find details in the CG newsletter. 

Above all, being an artist is something I signed up for with teen angst – as an expression of self – to make sense of the world. As an adult, I understand less about humanity each day, so art-making has become defiance incarnate. Make the most honest and brave work you can to remember your heading. If doing so in a more sustainable way is possible, that is progress. 

Recommended Reads 

• Bren Smith, Eat Like a Fish
• Ministry of Defence, Post Strategic Trends, The Future Starts Today, (6th edition) 
• David Fleming, Lean Logic (A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It)
• Vivienne Westwood, Active Resistance to Propaganda