Nesta’s sustainable future mission aims to significantly reduce the amount of pollution from homes in the UK. To help achieve that mission, Nesta wanted to engage the UK public in the conversation and help tackle the climate crisis. As part of this mission, Nesta partnered with National Gallery X (The National Gallery and King’s College London) to offer a unique creative research and development opportunity, working with creatives and artists to develop an experience to catalyse a net-zero carbon future – inspired by one of the greatest collections of art in the world.

The UK’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 requires some big changes to the way we live. The relationship we have with our homes and, in particular, the effect of household emissions on climate change, is an area we are keen to explore. We all want to pass on a healthy planet to future generations. Over the next few years, governments, businesses and the energy sector need to take practical action to make it affordable and attractive for everyone to have a low-carbon home, wherever they live and whatever their circumstances.

To help make low-carbon homes a reality, we need art and creativity to be at the forefront of inspiring new behaviours and ways of relating to our world. With this in mind, we sought to work with creative / artistic teams that demonstrated a passionate commitment to work that effects transformative environmental and social change, and that placed their target audiences at the heart of their creative process.

We wanted to support the creation of a compelling experience to be hosted in the gallery’s innovation space NGX. The experience was based around the Gallery’s collection to ignite wider media and public interest around climate change and household emissions, contributing to a popular movement to create cleaner, greener homes.

Nesta’s own research shows the importance of this issue. In a Feb 2021 UK survey, 85% of people agreed that climate change is one of the most important issues that needs addressing and 84% agreed everyone will have to address energy efficient and green heating measures in their homes sooner or later. However, despite the residential sector being the third-biggest emitter, accounting for a fifth of all UK emissions, only 35% have adopted or are planning to adopt energy efficiency measures in their own homes soon. There is a need to highlight the significance of household emissions and help drive the urgency and scale of change required. This project drew on the power of the arts to engage, inspire, shift mindsets and motivate change.

The Gallery’s collection of paintings documents many aspects of human lives, including seismic changes which have underpinned and fuelled the climate crisis, for example Turner and industrial smog. Many works in the collection portray people in and outside homes; we wondered what would these environments look like today in a world of central heating and open plan living; and what might they look like in the future? What did they tell us about how society can change and the ways in which people have made rapid and radical changes to their lives in response to external events throughout history?

We offered two R&D production commissions in the region of £40k along with in-kind contributions from The National Gallery, King’s College London and Nesta.

The commission enabled two artists, driven by a desire to catalyse change, to develop experiences that were creatively ambitious, grounded in science, the Gallery’s collection and co-designed with target audiences.

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We showcased two exhibitions, chosen from a wide range of applications. In collaboration with Shadwell Ensemble, Love Ssega created an immersive musical experience at The National Gallery that aimed to highlight the need for sustainable social housing. In collaboration with Lakeside Arts, writer Sam Redway and the Mixed Reality Lab, University of Nottingham, Makers of Imaginary Worlds created an interactive installation that aimed to address the value-action gap in behaviour around climate change and encourage families to make sustainable choices in their homes.

From interviews with adults who attended the exhibitions, 82% indicated that the experience helped raise awareness of climate change. 66% said they had not been to an experience like HOME-zero and they appreciated the novelty and innovation of it. 76% said they thought the installations could help children understand sustainability.