Join SPARK
Join the SPARK Network
Join the email list by emailing
jane@castlefieldgallery.co.ukNext Session
SPARK #48 Collective CuratingJoin our community of artists & creatives who want to intervene in the climate crisis!
- Free monthly programmed workshops – often lead by SPARK members themselves
- A dedictaed mailing list
- A members whatsapp group to stay updated on each other’s activities
Castlefield Gallery kick-started SPARK in response to the high demand for places on the 2021/22 SUSTAIN programme focussing on low carbon art making. SPARK is open to artists and creatives who want to find solutions and intervention points in the current trajectory towards climate breakdown. SPARK meets monthly, with each session being hosted by a different SPARK artist. There are over 100 members on the SPARK mailing list, and a lively WhatsApp group.
Sessions have included
workshops on:
- Soundscapes and the relationships between carbon and noise
- Using art activism to challenge local deforestation
- Plastic in my practice
- Making terrariums & images using photo-sensitive plant parts
- Appreciative inquiry; energy efficiency; ecoboardgames
- The role of the artist at ‘the end of time’
- Campaigns for urban green spaces
- How artists can influence local democracy
- A moss walk in the centre of Manchester
visits to:
- Cadishead and Little Woolden Moss
- Castlefield Viaduct
- Dunham Massey
- Hest Bank
- Northern Roots
- Salford Art Gallery
- A walking tour with the Loiterers’ Resistance Movement
- The River Irwell
From creating costumed climate-crisis personas and hacking eco-board games, to moss-walking and guerrilla gardening, SPARK has become a space for artists and creatives to experiment, collaborate and imagine new ways of responding to the climate crisis together. Taking place across Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester Museum, Castlefield Viaduct, Little Woolden Moss, Dunham Massey and beyond, every session has brought different people, ideas and spaces together, and that continues to shape what SPARK becomes.
SPARK is constantly evolving in response to the interests and questions of the people who take part. Whether you’re an artist, maker, organiser, writer, researcher or simply curious about creative responses to the climate crisis, there’s space for you here. Your ideas, skills, and experiments will help shape what we do next.
SPARK artists also played a major role in the 2025 Remember Nature event at Platt Hall, initiated by Phil Barton, while Sophy King and John-Paul Brown curated SPARK: Artist Interventions in a Time of Crisis at Rogue Studios across 2024/25, which was a programme of exhibitions and events exploring how artists can respond to environmental and social breakdown with imagination, solidarity and care.
We’re especially grateful to Manchester Art Gallery for hosting many of our early sessions, to Manchester Museum for regularly welcoming us into their beautiful top floor classroom, and to Castlefield Gallery Artist Environmental Lead Jane Lawson, for continuing to support the project’s coordination and development.
