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Art for action: Climate visuals to engage the public and move policy-makers
Supervisor: Tim Osborn (ENV)
Erik Hartin is a Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholar at the University of East Anglia as part of the Critical Decade programme and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts. His research will examine how artistic interventions – from creative protest, street art and posters to public artworks and public commissions – can more effectively be used as tools to create radical change in our approach to tackling the climate and ecological emergency and investigate how climate-centred art and visuals are perceived by public and policy makers alike.
As a climate activist, designer, editor and writer who has more than fifteen years of experience in the fields of contemporary art, publishing and activism, Erik’s work has a deep focus on designing sustainable and regenerative content and systems to help drive change in culture. He holds an MA from the Royal College of Art, is an Associate Lecturer at the University of the Arts, London and a member of Culture Hack Labs, a narrative consultancy that supports cultural interventions for systems change.
Erik’s collaborative output has been published by a number of international publications, including two novels published by Book Works (London). One of the coordinators in the Extinction Rebellion media and design teams until 2022, his teams’ work has been featured in international news media and reached audiences in the tens of millions on social media.
What are you most excited about in joining the Critical Decade PhD programme?
I’m excited about the opportunity to research and write about art, activism and climate in an academic context, and working with the Sainsbury Centre’s extraordinary environment, collections, and staff.
My own practice is focused on engendering urgent and necessary change to tackle the climate and ecological crisis, and the context of the Critical Decade programme feels like a perfect fit. As my work has always centred cross-disciplinary output I’m also looking forward to working alongside other researchers at the front lines of climate change research, and to learn from and contribute to academic work done in support of urgent climate action.