Can creativity be a catalyst for change? BBC Earth invites artists to utilise the natural world and rewild their practices

To coincide with BBC Earth’s “Our Green Planet” initiative, we invited a group of creatives to develop an original series showcasing innovative ways of looking at the natural world for inspiration.

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It’s Nice That has partnered with BBC Earth to present Rewilding Creativity: a series of commissions imagining an environment where people and plants live in harmony. This series was created as part of “Our Green Planet”, a digital initiative from BBC Earth in association with The Moondance Foundation, which aims to raise awareness for the beauty and fragility of our planet’s green ecosystems, and to inspire audiences with stories of people around the globe dedicating their lives for positive change. To find out more about the initiative head here.

Although separated in education, science and art often attract like minded individuals. Just like artists, designers and photographers, biologists, zoologists and astronomers all have a curiosity for the world around them; a want to understand the way the world works, and share such insights back to wider audiences for their own discovery.

It’s this element of curiosity which led Mike Gunton, BBC Studios Natural History Unit’s creative director, to his 30-year long career at the broadcaster. Originally a zoologist, the “sense of understanding, experiencing and reflecting the world” which creativity provides pulled Mike towards documentary filmmaking, subsequently leading production on behalf of the BBC’s Natural History Unit. “In this job the thing that gets me most excited is showing people things that they can’t see with their own eyes. I think that this is what drives quite a lot of the excitement of our natural history programmes,” the creative director tells It’s Nice That. “People often ask me, ‘What is the next technology?’ but what they’re really asking is, ‘What is the new perspective you’re going to bring for us to see things in the natural world?’”

“Creative ways of using nature’s creativity to be creative”

Mike Gunton

Across its variety of programmes, BBC Earth provides a window into environments and communities. In particular, its ability to utilise storytelling as a communication device on behalf of the natural world has widened outlooks on the subject of climate change and our fast-changing planet. From the comfort of home, viewers have been able to see how their actions take hold across the globe, from rising temperatures and ecosystem degradation to increasing numbers of endangered arctic animals. “Nature is raising a flag,” adds Mike, “saying something is happening to us that has never happened before – and it’s happening really fast.”

Yet in its coverage BBC Earth has always advocated for positive action to encourage positive change. As Mike describes: “There are so many campaigns that say ‘Don’t do this!’ or ‘Stop doing that!’, whereas programmes like The Green Planet are not about that. It’s about ‘Do this!’, ‘Plant something!’, ‘Cultivate it!’ – a tone of voice that has led to the concept of a new collaboration between It’s Nice That and BBC Earth: Rewilding Creativity.

Following in BBC Earth’s footsteps of providing new perspectives, we have together commissioned four creatives to demonstrate how the natural world can be utilised for untapped inspiration, and how creativity can be a catalyst for change in the natural world. “Creative ways of using nature’s creativity to be creative – if that isn’t too much of a tongue twister,” says Mike.

Each of our creatives – photographer Tami Aftab, digital artist Rose Pilkington, illustrator Charlotte Ager and artist Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck – were briefed to imagine “an environment where people and plants live in harmony”. The resulting pieces, each made in their own local environments, display the variety of artistry that nature can provide the creative eye – all we need to do is look around. As Mike advises, and as our artists advocate for in their words and work below: “We should all be magpies as much as possible.”

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Tami Aftab: Rewilding Creativity

Rose Pilkington

The basis of London-based digital artist Rose Pilkington’s practice has always leaned into inspiration from the natural world. At first, her work was heavily influenced by colour, namely “the psychological effect its presence in our surroundings has on human beings,” she tells It’s Nice That. Subsequent avenues of research steered Rose towards colour within nature, leading the artist to obsess “over the vivid and psychedelic markings found on moths, nudibranchs, beetles and birds, to name a few.”

In turn, the natural world is where you’ll find Rose searching for unexplored sources of inspiration. And, in the case of this collaboration with BBC Earth, the artist has immortalised a series of insects and plant life in a digital amber – creatively preserving the creatures of her inspiration. “We have such a plethora of imagery and information at our fingertips,” says Rose of this process. “In turning to nature there is such an infinite realm to be inspired by, and if I’m ever creatively stuck, this is where I turn to.”

“There is such magic in being shown precious moments in nature that we'd never possibly be able to see or experience with our own eyes”

Rose Pilkington
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Rose Pilkington: Rewilding Creativity

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Rose Pilkington: Rewilding Creativity

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Rose Pilkington: Rewilding Creativity

It’s Nice That: Could you tell us about your relationship with BBC Earth prior to this project?

Rose Pilkington: So much of my work is hugely inspired by the insights that BBC Earth gives us into the natural world. I’ve always been a huge fan of all the content BBC Earth produces, ever since I was a child. There is such magic in being shown precious moments in nature that we’d never possibly be able to see or experience with our own eyes. What I’ve always loved is to be shown these mind blowing, natural moments and baffling oddities occurring every day, all around the world, that we’d otherwise have never known about. It’s such a privilege to be able to see.

NT: How did you develop the concept for your artworks? Especially this idea of creating modern, yet historical feeling artefacts?

RP: What sparked my inspiration was the idea of trying to visualise insects immortalised in amber. Insects or specimens preserved in time, suspended in rock or amber, have connotations of the past. Often extinct, preserved for hundreds and thousands of years, they serve as a piece of time in place. This in turn reflects the themes of the changing state of our planet and allows us a moment to marvel at – and appreciate what we could lose.

I started sketching out the work initially as a collage of elements, insects and plants. I then started building out each composition modelled in 3D, focusing on creating detailed and brightly coloured materials for the insects, so they appeared jewel-like. I placed flower and leaf elements amongst the insects, and created a jelly or ice-like block to feel like they were preserved in time.

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Rose Pilkington: Rewilding Creativity

“Bringing to attention all of nature’s beauty and horror allows us to find great appreciation in all the wonders it provide”

Rose Pilkington

INT: Over the course of this project, we’ve noticed how creating work inspired by nature has a nostalgic feeling. Would you say this is true for you?

RP: It certainly feels nostalgic in that sense; a lot of our early interactions come from objects that are readily available to us. I remember those activities as a child: tracing a fallen leaf, making a tree bark rubbing or sketching a landscape. There is such a simple beauty in the act of studying the intricacies and the details of these natural objects. These early experiences I truly believe are vital for children and young people to learn to interact with nature, and take the time to observe and connect with our natural surroundings. This idea in the present day feels ever-more important, as we disconnect further and further away from our natural surroundings and onto digital screens.

I feel like a lot of what I aim to achieve in my work is to marry the natural world with the digital world. We know that intrinsically we need to connect to green, plant life and animals, and that psychologically we are affected by our environment.

INT: What would you say this idea of Rewilding Creativity means to you?

RP: The idea of Rewilding Creativity really resonates with me and my work. I take inspiration almost solely from the natural world, and from patterns and colours found in nature. I tend to hyper-focus on particular plants or species and find inspiration in every small moment. I’ve always had a deep connection to the natural world from growing up in the countryside, and was brought up to believe that nature simply must be celebrated. Bringing to attention all of nature’s beauty and horror allows us to find great appreciation in all the wonders it provides.

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Rose Pilkington: Rewilding Creativity

Tami Aftab

The garden at photographer Tami Aftab’s family home is an intimate representation of her parents’ love for the outdoors. Her father can be found pottering around enjoying his newfound fascination with gardening, while the photographer’s mother can be seen pondering over designing the space creatively, “to make it feel like home”, says Tami.

Backing onto a local heath in Surrey, a south east county in England just outside of London, it’s the Aftab family’s very own sanctuary: “There is birdsong and bright green parakeets are always clustering on the garden’s tree,” describes the photographer. “It’s a communal space for eating, playing with pets, painting and yoga.”

With nature so entwined with her sense of home, Tami often utilises the natural world in her practice – whether shooting a story for climate and culture publication Atmos, or a commission for the likes of Rapha and Stella McCartney. And this original series, created for BBC Earth, sees Tami return to the space where her fondness for nature began.

“I think the opportunity to witness nature, in a way most would never have otherwise seen, creates more awareness for our planet and encourages us”

Tami Aftab
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Tami Aftab: Rewilding Creativity

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Tami Aftab: Rewilding Creativity

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Tami Aftab: Rewilding Creativity

It’s Nice That: Could you tell us about your relationship with BBC Earth prior to this project?

Tami Aftab: I’ve always been inspired by BBC Earth programmes; from the exciting and dramatic scenes from Planet Earth, to the mystical and beautiful shots from Frozen Planet. The ability to access nature through these shows is incredible.

I think the opportunity to witness nature, in a way most would never have otherwise seen, creates more awareness and empathy for our planet and encourages us.

INT: Your series for Rewilding Creativity features your very own garden. Tell us about this space and the time you and your family spend there?

TA: The garden is based in Molesey, Surrey. The area is surrounded by amazing greenery – considering its proximity to London – from Bushy Park to Richmond Park, and even down to the local heath our garden luckily backs onto. I have lots of memories from our family garden, particularly summer barbecues with all my family eating my dad’s amazing Pakistani food. We’d lay blankets and cushions on the grass, and stay there until sunset.

My parents grow a lot of flowers, alongside the herb garden they made from a wheelbarrow found on the street. They’re definitely interested in growing vegetables soon too. My mum is very creative with how she curates the garden. This summer, she decorated the tree by wrapping it with lightweight, colourful fabrics from Pakistan to brighten up the space. She also found branches while walking the dog to bring home and paint.

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Tami Aftab: Rewilding Creativity

“Nature is where I return to whenever I am stuck, whether that’s in work or in life”

Tami Aftab

INT: What would you say this concept of Rewilding Creativity means to you personally?

TA: To me, Rewilding Creativity means to use what’s around you and make the best of it – even if it’s as simple as painting onto the pebbles you find at the beach. Nature is where I return to whenever I am stuck, whether that’s in work or in life. By working with nature, I’m reminded that I’m no different to the earth than the flowers and the trees.

INT: A key aspect of this collaboration with BBC Earth is to facilitate open conversations around climate change. What are the ways you feel creating artworks can elevate important topics such as this?

TA: I find photography, and art in general, always comes from a place which is personal and emotional. In seeing topics translated visually, people around the globe are able to relate to the subject and interpret it in their own way.

Therefore, creating artworks about climate change will help to connect others to issues on a more personal level, rather than the often objective and apathetic words we read on the news. I think even just capturing the beauty of nature, as BBC Earth does with its shows, can make us start to value the privilege we have existing on this planet.

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Tami Aftab: Rewilding Creativity

Charlotte Ager

Just a three minute walk away from the home of illustrator Charlotte Ager is Peckham Rye Park, a vast green space of calm in this busy district of south London. If you happened to be in the area over the past few months you may have spotted Charlotte, who has selected the park as her muse in this collaboration with BBC Earth.

Heading out numerous times to document the comings and goings of this environment, the illustrator had no fixed plan for what may materialise in her final pieces, instead finding “moments that were interesting to me, that maybe said something about how I felt about the environment”, she says. “I wanted to go somewhere close to me because it felt important in this project, to recognise that local spaces around us can offer so much.”

Charlotte’s subsequent works, and overall practice, mirrors an outlook BBC Earth provides for its audiences: to always appreciate the small moments nature offers us on a daily basis. “It may sound cliche, but most of us have got out of the habit of really looking at all,” she adds. “We look at photos of people jetting off to exciting places on our screens, rather than simply noticing what’s around us. We’re missing out on the magic right in front of our eyes.”

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Charlotte Ager: Rewilding Creativity

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Charlotte Ager: Rewilding Creativity

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Charlotte Ager: Rewilding Creativity

It’s Nice That: When would you say nature, or the natural environment, become a focal point in your creative practice?

Charlotte Ager: I think I’ve always been inspired by nature. Growing up by the sea on the Isle of Wight meant it was so easily accessible and fed into my daily experiences growing up. But when I moved to London, and became an illustrator, I think I initially ruled out depicting the natural world because it didn’t feel trendy. It felt too obvious to draw inspiration from. I got into my head that I needed to find obscure reference points.

“We need joy and we need hope. Artworks can help us feel these things”

Charlotte Ager

Over time, it just crept in. I think this was partly because I used to live in quite a built up area when I graduated university. Access to nature was limited, and therefore became more precious to me. Parks became my favourite places and I’d notice how much better I’d feel for being in them. So, maybe depicting the natural world was partly escapism. I also just started caring less about what was trendy and trusting what I was naturally drawn to.

Now it’s a constant in my work in so many ways; it’s an endless source of inspiration in the form of colours, shapes and composition. But it also acts as a metaphor in my work. There’s so much to draw from in terms of storytelling because it's living. It’s constantly changing and therefore feels like it’s full of characters and narratives.

INT: Could you tell us about your relationship with BBC Earth prior to this project?

CA: I think BBC Earth’s programmes help us to connect to a larger sense of nature, which is important because we have to be reminded that the way we live our lives impacts the lives of plants and creatures worldwide. If we didn’t have this insight and direct footage, it might be easier to forget the interconnectedness of our planet. But it allows us to feel empathy for creatures and habitats from around the world, and therefore care about what happens to them.

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Charlotte Ager: Rewilding Creativity

“We don’t always need to travel across the world to be inspired by places, we just have to look a bit more.”

Charlotte Ager

INT: Can you tell us how you developed the idea for your works, particularly around concentrating on one specific place revisited?

CA: I often like returning to places because, particularly in natural environments, so much changes. I used to always want to draw in new places – always wanting something fresh and exciting. But I’ve found there’s so much enjoyment from observing how the spaces around you change. Every hour of the day is different because of the light, of the people in the space, of the way you walk around it.

We don’t always need to travel across the world to be inspired by places, we just have to look a bit more. I wanted to show that, in this series, we can constantly draw from what’s around us if we give it more of our time.

INT: A key aspect of this collaboration with BBC Earth is to facilitate open conversations around climate change. What are the ways you feel creating artworks can elevate important topics such as this?

CA: I think artworks can find empathic ways to connect to people, they can sometimes offer ways into topics that seem huge and scary. Sometimes they connect emotionally in a way other mediums can’t, they can instantly draw you in and feel accessible.

With climate change, sometimes the rhetoric is so scary that it freezes us into inaction. Of course we naturally feel scared at the colossal challenge we face, but we need other emotions to steer us into action. We need joy and we need hope. Artworks can help us feel these things, reminding us about the delicate balance we find ourselves in.

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Charlotte Ager: Rewilding Creativity

Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck

Although a multidisciplinary artist, a love for natural environments carries through all of the work Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck executes.

It’s a level of fascination and respect viewers can spot across her practice. Whether it’s in her own artworks, her work within the Seed Saving Network, summers spent at a biodynamics and organic farm in Alsace, or the fact she founded The Gardening Drawing Club, which offers free access to arts and horticulture to adults and children. In the case of this project with BBC Earth, Johanna brings together this layered understanding to create a series of paintings depicting her own environment, made with pigments formed from her garden too.

In this sense, the artist’s practice quite literally represents this concept of Rewilding Creativity. It’s an idea she herself describes as a willingness to “newly question and reconsider ways of working and collaborating, to keep learning and making with others, as community spirit is, I believe, essential to advance”, Johanna says. “Going deeper than the first layers of subject matter is also necessary if one is willing to make even a tiny meaningful and positive difference, while not forgetting to laugh and love!”

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Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck: Rewilding Creativity

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Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck: Rewilding Creativity

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Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck: Rewilding Creativity

It’s Nice That: When would you say nature, or the natural environment, become a focal point in your practice?

Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck: There is not one particular moment that ensured that the natural environment became one of the focal points in my creative practice. Instead, it’s a series of events and the life that I live; a life that makes me want to care.

I was raised in the rural countryside of Alsace, France, primarily by my grandparents, who grew all of their vegetables, fruits, herbs and tisanes. This self-sufficiency in plant-based food is also practised by my father, who is a keen and dedicated gardener before and after his day-time job.

As I moved to cities – Zürich, Berlin and London – I gradually realised that, if I wanted to have this element in my life, I had to activate it. On my journey I became vegetarian, and then vegan, and tried to implement that in the mediums I employ for work. I am glad we live in a world where we no longer need to write about how much more beneficial being plant-based is for the environment, especially when consuming plants grown locally, let alone wishing to alleviate the suffering and slaughtering of animals.

Like other deep ecology [an environmental philosophy] practitioners, the natural environment is something I see humans as a part of too. Nature can be cruel and, while not to humanise it too much, I believe we have been cruel and abusive in overwhelming manners to other sentient beings. The time for more compassion and kindness is needed. Even if, for some, that is motivated by the fear of climate change rather than by wishing well to others. This desire to be kind and caring inspires me to work with materials and people that reflect such gestures, while also hoping to plant a seed of compassion in the life of those who might not yet see this as a path.

“Small aspects of our daily life, if given care and thought, even just a tiny bit, may help restore energy and improve the qualities of living.”

Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck

INT: Can you tell us about the natural materials you use in your practice? It sounds like a fascinating process!

JTH: I work with a wide range of mediums and materials, from collecting unwanted textiles to writing, painting, drawing and photography. Over the past few years – while still painting with oil on linen canvas – I have attempted (and still do so) to create colours directly from plants I grow or harvest. It started in 2015 with the ongoing project Penser, Manger, Partager (French for “To Think, To Eat, To Share”), where I collect unwanted textiles and dye them with the clean leftover of pits and peels of fruits, vegetables and teas my family and I consume. I then use the dyed textiles in patchwork form to create large installations.

I also use plant pigments made in Germany and stone pigments sourced in India by my husband, the painter Jatinder Singh Durhailay. The paintings I have created for this commission are on hemp paper, a versatile plant that can significantly benefit the soil by preventing erosion. For the colours, I used some elderberries I carefully forged in rural Oxfordshire, where I now live, Hopi beans and other plants.

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Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck: Rewilding Creativity

Making colours is an enjoyable process. Yet at present, I am never so sure how long the colours will be visible. While I appreciate the ephemerality of the pigments and life in general – and the way these kinds of paintings might reflect the transience of certain plants – as an artist exhibiting works, galleries are not keen on selling artworks with an unknown life expectancy. I am looking to improve my skills as a pigment maker and I hope that the art market will offer such alternatives more widely, so that I may create longer-lasting paintings that are also ecologically sound.

INT: Your thinking reflects an ethos of BBC’s Earth to pay attention to smaller moments, believing “We should all be magpies”. For you, why is creativity an apt medium to showcase details such as this?

JTH: What I hope to show and share with people is not what they can not see, but rather what they might overlook, and learn what I might overlook too. Small aspects of our daily life, if given care and thought – even just a tiny bit – may help restore energy and improve the qualities of living. That might be spending less time on a phone or a screen and more time outdoors.

“Climate change also means caring for others and being ready to care more.”

Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck

INT: A key aspect of this collaboration with BBC Earth is to facilitate open conversations around climate change. What are the ways you feel creating artworks can elevate important topics such as this?

JTH: Climate change is an important topic, yet from speaking with various groups of people of different ages, mainly via The Gardening Drawing Club and other community projects, I think a lot of the discourse given to society at the moment is creating fear and anxiety. I am more for knowing the facts and coming together to create good solutions and revisions on how we may continue to inhabit this planet, while acknowledging it is not just ours.

The artworks I create are usually very gentle, and the messages they contain have different levels of reading; some people might enjoy the artworks, while others might give it more profound consideration. It is especially the case for the series Penser, Manger, Partager, which contains texts in needle work, or The Gardening Drawing Club, where veganic, also known as stock-free horticulture methods, are taught and employed. Climate change also means caring for others and being ready to care more.

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Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck: Rewilding Creativity

Click here to find out more about the BBC Earth “Our Green Planet” initiative.

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About the Author

Lucy Bourton

Lucy (she/her) is the senior editor at Insights, a research-driven department with It's Nice That. Get in contact with her for potential Insights collaborations or to discuss Insights' fortnightly column, POV. Lucy has been a part of the team at It's Nice That since 2016, first joining as a staff writer after graduating from Chelsea College of Art with a degree in Graphic Design Communication.

lb@itsnicethat.com

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